









a ° ** ' 


s ^ ** 

A ^ * <t S 

G° Ol'' '* ^ 


,C> - 

iV - 


o ^ y 


& 


^</> rf\> 




> 




V y °^ 

% * 
10 

' ° ,c3 -^x 

A ,# ^ % 

* * 


ar; — 

/ * ^ * 0 /■ 




& 




•- 


F 


v 


.%* ^ 

■ v> 


<1 x\, v «- 

*^y> * v 

* z </> <V 


• ay •*#> vsa^ ; ^ •% . 

3 a'l^_>. ^ rO- s'**^M 






r b *' 

■> v % ! -' 1 * N 





' aV 

: tr» <v 


o cS ^ 

-V* ^ ^ % 


**s' 

rQ s s 




cS> -» c?^lll()i==Z O ci 

/ x- ^Jp* # ^ v 

\ s .., <</'”''(/ s.. r <Cp '** 

* V<# A.< 

* < 

/ 

* <& 

, V' * < * 0 , “ * * V ^ Y * 

%*y . ^Mmb l ^ v 

« ,<£ ^ 

<t? » 



_ ^ %> * 

^ -a,* _ 

* \V^ °Q^ *4 o * x 


n i * \ V 

0 ‘ * \> » 1 * 0 , ^ 











































* . 


. ’ •* i* lljlil 

V" »* 





> '* 


' -•■' uS* 




.:« 























V ' , ' 

\ 


► 


























**\ . . . * V\cr\t tn\ ^ V&*t~X 

v ' \b%'v^v v 1 

POEMS. 


-\ 


BY LORD BYRON. 


> ) 

,**- J } 0 


NEW- YORK : 


PUBLISHED BY THOMAS KIRK AND THOMAS R. MERCEIN 
MOSES THOMAS, M. CAREY AND SON, PHILADELPHIA } 
WELLS AND LILLY, BOSTON; AND COALE AND 
MAXWELL, BALTIMORE. 

T. Sf W. Mercein, printers, 93 Gold-street, 



1817 

























% 


\ 




i 






* 












% 


* t 

t 












> 


/ •* 








t 



4 




% 






















* * 










A 






f 


# 




* 




























































r 





















- > 







* 



















\ 

3 » 




















• > 












. 






















« 


* 





• - 








s 
















* 












^ : 

. 


♦ 








b 


- • 




■ 

- • 












■ > 





/ 








CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE. 


A ROMAUNT. 

• ' * - 

CANTO III. 

Is thy face like thy mother’s, my fair child ! 

Ada ! sole daughter of my house and heart ? 

When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smiled, 

And then we parted, — not as now we part, 

But with a hope. — 

Awaking with a start, 

The waters heave around me ; and on high 
The winds lift up their voices : I depart, 

Whither I know not ; but the hour’s gone by, 

When Albion’s lessening shores could grieve or glad mine 


4 


CHILDE HAROLD’S 


Canto II I. 


II. 

Once more upon the waters ! yet once more ! 

And the waves bound beneath me as a steed 
That knows his rider. Welcome, to their roar ! 

Swift be their guidance, wheresoe’er it lead ! 

Though the strain’d mast should quiver as a reed, 

And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale, 

Still must I on ; for I am as a weed, 

Flung from the rock, on Ocean’s foam, to sail 
Where’er the surge may sweep, the tempest’s breath prevail. 

HI, 

In my youth’s summer I did sing of One, 

The wandering outlaw of hiS own dark mind ; 

Again I seize the theme then but begun, 

And bear it with me, as the rushing wind 
Bears the cloud onwards : in that Tale I find 
The furrows of long thought, and- dried-up tears, 
Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind, 

O’er which all heavily the journeying years 
Plod the last sands of life, — where not a flower appears. 


dz 



Canto III. PILGRIMAGE. 

»* 7 - yt 

IV. 

Since my young days of passion— joy, or pain, 
Perchance my heart and harp have lost a string, 
And both may jar : it may be, that m vain 
I would essay as I have sung to sing. 

Vet, though a dreary strain, to this I cling ; 

So that it wean me from the weary dream 
Of selfish grief or gladness — so it fling 
Forgetfulness around me — it shall seem 
To me, though to none else, a not ungrateful theme. 


V. 


He, who grown aged in this world of woe, 

In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life, 

So that no wonder waits him ; nor below 

Can love, or sorrow, fame, ambition, strife, 

T 

Cut to his heart again with the keen knife 
Of silent, sharp endurance ; he can tell 
Why thought seeks refuge in lone caves, yet l ife 
With airy images, and shapes which dwell 
Still unimpair’d, though old, in the soul’d haunted cell. 


6 CH1LDE HAROLD’S Canto III. 

|W v I 

VI. 

’Tis to create, and in creating live 
A being more intense, that we endow 
With form our fancy, gaining as we give 
The life we image, even as I do now. 

What am I ? Nothing ; but not so art thou, 

Soul'of my thought ! with whom I traverse earth, 

Invisible but gazing, as I glow 

Mix’d with thy spirit, blended with thy birth, 

And feeling still with thee in my crush’d feelings’ dearth. 

VII. 

\ 

Yet must I think less wildly : — I have thought 
Too long and darkly, till my brain became, 

In its own eddy boiling and o’erwrought, 

A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame : 

And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame, 

My springs of life were poison’d. ’Tis too late ! 

Yet am I chang’d ; though still enough the same 
In strength to bear what time can not abate, 

And feed on bitter fruits without accusing Fate. 


Canto III. 


PILGRIMAGE. 


7 

•VIII. 

Something too much of this : — but now Uis past. 

And the spell closes with its silent seal. 

Long absent HAROLD re-appears at last; 

He of the breast which fain no more would feel. 

Wrung with the wounds which kill not, but ne’er heal ; 
Yet Time, who changes all, had altered him 
In soul and aspect as in age : years steal 
Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb ; 

And life’s enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim. 

IX. 

His had been quaff’d too quickly, and he found 
The dregs were wormwood ; but he fill’d again, 

And from a purer fount, on holier ground. 

And deem’d its spring perpetual ; but in vain ! 

Still round him clung invisibly a chain 
Which gall’d for ever, fettering though unseen, 

And heavy though it clank’d not ; worn with pain, 
Which pined although it spoke not, and grew keen, 
Entering with every step, he took, through many a scene. 




CHILDE HAROLD’S 


Canto II I. 


X. ' 

Secure in guarded Coldness, he had mix’d 
Again in fancied safety with his kind, 

And deem’d his spirit now so firmly fix’d 
And sheath’d with an invulnerable mind. 

That, if no joy, no sorrow lurk’d behind ; 

And he, as one, might midst the man^ stand 
Unheeded, searching through the crowd to find 
Fit speculation ! such as in strarige land 
He found in wonderworks of God and Nature’s hand. 

XI. 

But who can vi«w the ripened rose, nor seek 
To wear it? who can curiously behold 
The smoothness and the sheen of beauty’s cheek, 
Nor feel the heart can never all grow old ? 

Who can contemplate Fame through'clouds unfold 
The star which rises o’er her steep, nor climb ? 
Harold, once more within the vortex, roll’d 
On with the giddy circle, chasing Time, , 

Vet with a nobler aim than in his youth’s fond prime. 




Canto III. PILGRIMAGE. 


XII. 







But soon he knew himself the most unfit 
Of men to herd with Man ; with whom he held 
Little in common ; untaught to submit 
His thoughts to others, though his soul was quell’d 
In youth by his own thoughts ; still uncompell’d, 
He would not yield dominion of ms mind 
To spirits against whom his ow,n rebel I’d ; 

Proud though in desolation; which could find 
A life within itself, to breathe without mankind. 


XIII. 

Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends v. 
Where roll’d the ocean, thereon was his home ; 

Where a blue sky, and glowing clime, extends, 

He had the passion and the power to roam ; 

The desert, forest, cavern, breaker’s foam, 

Were unto him companionship ; they spake 
A mutual language, clearer than the tome 
Of his land’s tongue, which he would oft forsake 

For Nature’s pages glass’d by sunbeams on the lake- 

A 2 


0 


CHILDE HAROLD’S 


Ganto III . 


XIV. 

Like the Chaldean, he could watch the stars, 

Till he had peopled them with beings bright 
As their own beams ; and earth, and earth-born jars, 
And human frailties, were forgotten quite : 

•Could lie have kept his spirit to that flight 
He had been happy ; but this clay will sink 
Its spark immortal, envying it the light 
To which it mounts, as if to break the link 
Phat keeps us from yon heaven which woos us to its brink. 

X.V. 

But in Man’s dwellings he became a thing 
Restless and worn, and stern and wearisome, 

Droop’d as a wild-bom falcon with dipt wing. 

To whom the boundless air alone were home : 

Then came his fit again, which to o’ercome, 

As eagerly the barr’d-up bird will beat 
His breast and beak against his wiry dome 
Till the blood tinge his plumage, so the heat 
Of his impeded soul would through his bosom eat. 


Canto III. 


PILGRIMAGE. 


II 


XVI. 

Self-exiled Harold wanders forth again, 

With nought of hope left, but with less of gloom ; 

The very knowledge that he lived in vain, 

That all was over on this side the tomb, 

Had made Despair a smilingness assume, 

Which, though ’twere wild, — as on the plundered wreck 
When mariners would madly meet their doom 
With draughts intemperate on the sinking deck, — 

©id yet inspire a cheer, which he forbore to check. 

XVII. 

Stop ! — for thy tread is on an Empire’s dust ! 

An Earthquake’s spoil is sepulchred below ! 

Is the spot mark’d with ho colossal bust ? 

Nor column trophied for triumphal show ? 

None ; but the moral’s truth tells simpler so, 

As the ground was before, thus let it be ; — 

How that red ram hath made the harvest grow 1 
And is this all the world has gained by thee, 

Thou first and last of fields ! king-making Victory ? 


12 


CHILDE HAROLD’S 


Canto III. 


XVIII. 

✓ \ 

And Harold stands upon this place of skulls, 

The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo ! 

How in an hour the power which gave annuls 
Its gifts, transferring fame as fleeting too ! 

In “ pride of place”(l) here last the eagle flew, 

Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain, 

Pierced by the shaft of banded nations through ; 
Ambition’s life and labours all were vain ; 

i . 

Be wears the shattered links of the world’s broken chain. 


XIX. 

Fit retribution ! Gaul may champ the bit 
And foam in fetters ; — but is Earth more Free ? 

Did nations combat to make One submit ; 

Or league to teach all kings true sovereignty ? 

What ! .shkll reviving Thraldom again be 
The patched-up idol of enlightened days ? 

Shall we, who struck the Lion down, shall we 
Pay the Wolf homage ? proffering lowly gaze 
And servile knees to thrones ? No ; prove before ^e praise 


Canto III. 


PILGRIMAGE. 


XX. 

If not, o’er one fallen despot boast no more ! 

In vain fair cheeks were furrowed with hot tears 
For Europe’s flowers long rooted up before 
The trampler of her vineyards ; in vain years 
Of death, depopulation, bondage, fears, 

Have all been borne, and broken by the accord 
Of roused-up millions ; all that most endears 
Glory, is when the myrtle wreathes a sword 
Such as Harmodius (2) drew on Athens’ tyrant lord. 

XXI. 

There was a sound of revelry by night, 

And Belgium’s capital had gathered then 

Her Beauty and her Chivaliy, and bright 

The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men ; 

A thousand hearts beat happily ; and when 

Music arose with its voluptuous swell, 

Soft eyes look’d love to eyes which spake again, 

And (3) all *went merry as a marriage-bell ; 

/ 

But hush ! hark ! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell .' 

H 


/ 


14 CIHLDE HAROLD’S Canto itl. 

XXII. 

f 

Did ye not hear it? — No; ’twas but the wind, 

Or the car rattling o’er the stony street ; 

On with the dance ! let joy be unconfined ; , 

No sleep till mom, when Youth fend Pleasure meet 
To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet — 

But hark ! — that heavy sound breaks in once more, 

As, if the clouds its echo would repeat ; 

And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before ! 

Ami ! Ami ! it is — it is — the cannon’s opening roar ! 

Be ^ r 

I - , , . / 

XXIII. 

' 

Within a windowed niche of that high hall 
Sate Brunswick’s fated chieftain ; he did hear 
That sound the first amidst the festival, 

And caught its tone with Death’s prophetic ear ; 

And when they smiled because he deem’d it near, 

His heart more truly knew that peal too well 
Which stretch’d his father on a bloody bier, 

And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell < 

He rush’d into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell- 


Canto ITT. 


PILGRIMAGE. 


15 


XXIV. 

Ah ! then and there was hurrying to and fro, 

And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, • 

And cheeks all pale, which, but an hour ago 
Blush’d at the praise of their own loveliness ; 

And there were sudden partings, such as press 
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs 
Which ne’er might be repeated ; who could guess 
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes, 

Since upon nights so sweet such awful mom could rise ? 

XXV. 

And there was mounting in hot haste : the steed, 

The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, 

Went pouring forward with impetuous speed. 

And swiftly forming in the ranks of war ; 

And the deep thunder peal on peal afar ; 

And near, the beat of the alarming drum 
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star ; 

While throng’d the citizens with terror dumb, 

Or whispering, with white lips — “ The foe ! They come ! 
the}- come !” 


6 


CHILDE HAROLD’S 


Canto III. 


XXVI. 

And wild and high the “ Cameron’s gathering” rose ! 

The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn’s hills 
Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes : — 
How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills, 

Savage and shrill ! But with the breath which fills 
Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers 
With the fierce native daring which instils 
The stirring memory of a thousand years, 

And (4) Evan’s, (5) Donald’s fame rings in each clansman’s* 
ears ! 

XXVII. 

And Ardennes (6) waves above them her green leaves, 
Dewy with nature’s tear-drops, as they pass, 

Grieving, if aught inanimate e’er grieves, 

Over the unreturning brave, — alas ! 

Ere evening to be trodden like the grass 
Which now beneath them, but above shall grow 
In its next verdure, when this fiery mass 
Of living valour, rolling on the foe 
And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low. 


Canto III t PILGRIMAGE. 17 

* V , 

XXVIII. 

Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, 

Last eve in Beauty’s circle proudly gay, 

The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife, 

The mbm the marshalling in arms, — the day 
Battle’s magnificently-stem array ! 

The thunder-clouds close o’er it, which when rent 
The earth is covered thick with other clay, 

Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent, 

Rider and horse, — friend, foe, — in one red burial blent ! 

XXIX. 

Their praise is hymn’d by loftier harps than mine ; 

Yet one I would select from that proud throng, 

Partly because they blend me with his line, 

And partly that I did his sire some wrong, 

And partly that bright names will hallow song; 

And his was of the bravest, and when shower’d 
The death-bolts deadliest the thinn’d files along, 

Even where the thickest of war’s tempest lower’d, 

They reach’d no nobler breast than thine, young, gallant 
Howard ! 


18 


CHILDE HAROLD’S 


Canto III - 


x 

XXX- 

There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee. 

And mine were nothing, had I such to give 
But when I stood beneath the fresh green tree, 

Which living, waves where thou didst cease to live, 

And saw around me the wide field revive 
With fruits and fertile promise, and the Spring 
Come forth her work of gladness to contrive, 

With all her reckless birds upon the wing, 

I turn’d from all she brought to those she could not bring. (7) 

:v, V ' 

XXXI. 

I turn’d to thee, to thousands, of whom each 
And one as all a ghastly gap did make 
In his own kind and kindred, whom to teach 
Forgetfulness were mercy for their sake ; 

The Archangel’s trump, not Glory’s, must awake 
Those whom they thirst for ; though the sound of F ame 
May for a moment soothe, it cannot slake 
The fever of vain longing, and the name 
So honoured but assumes a stronger, bitterer claim. 


Canto III. PILGRIMAGE. 

XXXII. 

They mourn, but smile at length ; and, smiling, mourn : 
The tree will wither long before it fall ; 

The hull drives on, though mast and sail be tom ; 

The roof-tree sinks, but moulders on the hall 

In massy hoariness ; the ruined wall 

Stands when its wind-worn battlements are gone ; 

The bars survive the captive they enthral ; 

The day drags through though storms keep out the sun ; 

And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on : 

• v 

, XXXIII. 

Even as a broken mirror, which the glass 
In every fragment multiplies ; and makes 
A thousand images of one that was, 

The same, and still the more, the more it breaks ; 

And thus the heart will do which not forsakes, 

Living in shattered guise, and still, and cold, 

And bloodless, with its sleepless sorrow aches, 

Y?t withers on till all without is old, 

Showing no visible sign, for such things are untold. 




19 


20 


CHILDE HAROLD’S 


Canto III. 


XXXIV. 

There is a very life in our despair, 

Vitality of poison,— a quick root 
Which feeds these deadly branches ; for it were 
As nothing did we die ; but Life will suit 
Itself to Sorrow’s most detested fruit, 

Like, to the apples on the (8) Dead Sea’s shore, 

All ashes to the taste : Did man compute 
Existence by enjoyment, and count o’er 
Such hours ’gainst years of life, — say, would he name three* 
score ? 

XXXV. 

The Psalmist numbered out the years of man : 

i 

They are enough ; and if thy tale be true y 

Thou, who didst grudge him even that fleeting span, 

More than enough, thou fatal Waterloo ! 

Millions of tongues record thee, and anew 
Their children’s lips shall echo them, and say — 

“ Here, where the sword united nations drew, 

“ Our countrymen were warring on that day !” 

And this is touch} and all which will not pass away. 


Canto III. 


PILGRIMAGE. 


4 

XXXVI. 

There sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men , 
Whose spirit antithetically mixt 
One moment of the mightiest, and again 
On little objects with like firmness fixt, 

Extreme in all things ! hadst thou been betwixt, 

Thy throne had still been thine, or never been \ 

For daring made thy rise as fall : thou seek’st 
Even now to re-assume the imperial mien, 

And shake again the world, the Thunderer of the scene 

t ♦ \ 

• * ' , ' 

XXXVII. 

Oonqueror and captive of the earth art thou ! 

She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name 
Was ne’er more bruited in men’s minds than now 
That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame, 

"Who wooed thee once, thy vassal, and became 
The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert 
A god unto thyself ; nor less the same 
To the astounded kingdoms all inert, 

Who deem’d thee for a time whate’er thou didst assert, 


22 CHILDE HAROLD’S Canto Jit. 

t , 

XXXVIII. 

Oh, more or less than man — in high or low, 

Battling with nations, flying from the field ; 

Now’ making monarchs’ necks thy footstool, now* 

More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield ; 

An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild, 

But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor, 

However deeply in men’s spirits skill’d. 

Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war, 

Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest sf&r. 

XXXIX. 

Yet well thy soul hath brook’d the turning tide 

,i. . v 

With that untaught innate philosophy, 

Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride, 

Is gall and wormwood to an enemy. 

When the whole host of hatred stood hard by, 

To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast smiled 
With a sedate and all-enduring eye ; 

When fortune fled her spoil’d and favourite child. 

He stood unbowed beneath the ills upon him piled- 


Canto III. 


PILGRIMAGE. 


23 


\ 

XL. 

Sager than in thy fortunes ; for in them 
Ambition steel’d thee on too far to show 
That just habitual scorn which could contemn 
- Men and their thoughts ; ’twas wise to feel, not So 
To wear it ever on thy lip and brow, 

And spurn the instruments thou wert to use 
Till they w r ere turn’d unto thine overthrow : 

’Tis but a worthless world to win or lose ; 

So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who choose. 

, , / 

XLL 

If, like a tower upoh a headlong rock, 

Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone, 

Such scorn of man had help’d to brave the shock ; 

But men’s thoughts were tie steps which paved thy throng, 
Their admiration thy best weapon shown ; 

The part of Philip’s son was thine, not then 
(Unless aside thy purple had been thrown) 

Like stem Diogenes to mock at men ; 

For sceptred cynics earth were far too wide a den. (9) 


24 


CHILDE HAROLD’S 


Canto III. 


XLTI. 

But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell, 

And there hath been thy bane ; there is a fire 
And motion of the soul which will not dwell 
In its own narrow being, but aspire 
Beyond the fitting medium of desire ; 

And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore, 

Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire 
Of aught but rest ; a fever at the core, 

Fatal to him who bears, to all who ever bore. 

XLIII. 

V 

r 

This makes the madmen who have made men mad 
By their contagion : Conquerors and Kings, 

Founders of sects and systems, to whom add 
Sophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet things 
Which stir too strongly the soul’s secret springs, 

And are themselves the fools to those they fool ; 
Envied, yet how unenviable ! what stings 
Are theirs ! One breast laid open were a school 
Which would uhteach mankind the lust to shine or rule : 


Canto III. 


PILGRIMAGE. 


XLIY. 

Their breath is agitation, and their life 
A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last, 

And yet so nurs’d and bigoted to strife, 

That should their days, surviving perils past, 

Melt to calm twilight, they feel overcast 
With sorrow and supineness, and so die ; 

Even as a flame unfed, which runs to waste 
With its own flickering, or a sword laid by 
Which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously. 

XLV. 

He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find 
The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow ; 
He who surpasses or subdues mankind, 

Must look down on the hate of those below. 
Though high above the sun of glory glow, 

And far beneath the earth and ocean spread, 
Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow 
Contending tempests on his naked head, 

And thus reward the toils which to those summits led. 
, B 


26 


. CHILDE HAROLD’S 


Canto III . 


XL Vi. 

Away with these ! true Wisdom’s world will be 
Within its own creation, or in thine, 

Maternal Nature ! for who teems like thee, 

Thus on the banks of thy majestic Rhine ? 

There Harold gazes on a work divine, 

A blending of all beauties ; streams and dells, 

Fruit,- foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain, vine. 
And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells 
From gray but leafy walls, where, ruin greenly dwells. 

XL VII. 

And there they stand, as stands a lofty mind. 

Worn, but unstooping to the baser crowd, 

All tenantless, save to the crannying wind. 

Or holding dark communion with the cloud. 

There was a day when they were young and proud. 
Banners on high, and battles pass’d below ; 

But they who fought are in a bloody shroud, 

And those which waved are shredlesss dust .ere now, 
And the bleak battlements shall bear no future blow. 


Canto III. 


PILGRIMAGE, 


27 


XL VIII. 

Beneath these battlements, within those walls, 

Power dwelt amidst her passions ; in proud state 
Each robber chief upheld his armed halls, 

Doing' his evil will, nor less elate 
Than mightier heroes of a longer date. 

What want these outlaws(lO) conquerors should have ? 
But Histoiy’s purchased page to call them great } 

A wider space, an ornamented grave ? 

Their hopes were not less warm, their souls were full as 
brave, 

XLIX. 

In their baronial feuds and single fields, 

What deeds of prowess unrecorded died ! 

And Love, which lent a blazon to their shields, 

With emblems well devised by amorous pride, 

Through all the mail of iron hearts would glide ; 

But still their flame was fierceness, and drew on 
Keen contest and destruction near allied, 

And many a tower for some fair mischief won, 

Saw the discoloured Riiine beneath its ruin run. 


53 


CHILDE HAROLD’S 


Canto III . 


L. 

But Thou, exulting and abounding river ! 

Making thy waves a blessing as they flow 
Through banks whose beauty would endure for ever 
Could man but leave thy bright creation so, „ 

Nor its fair promise from the surface mow 
With the sharp scythe of conflict, — then to see 
Thy valley of sweet waters, were to know 
Earth paved like Heaven ; and to seem such to me 
Even now what wants thy stream? — that it should Lethe be. 

LI. 

A thousand battles have assail’d thy banks, 

But these and half their fame have pass’d away, 

And slaughter heap’d on high his weltering ranks ; 

Their very graves are gone, and what are they ? 

Thy tide wash’d down the blood of yesterday, 

And all was stainless, and on thy clear stream 
Glass’d with its dancing light the sunny ray ; 

But o’er the blackened memory’s blighting dream 
Thy waves Would vainly roll,, all sweeping as they seem. 


Canto III. 


PILGRIMAGE. 


29 


LII. 

Thus Harold inly said, and pass’d along, 

Yet not insensibly to all which here 
Awoke the jocund birds to early song 
In glens which might have made even exile dear : 
Though on his brow were graven lines austere, 

And tranquil sternness which had ta’en the place 
Of feelings fierier far but less severe, 

Joy was not always absent from his face, 

But o’er it in such scenes would steal with transient trace. 

LIII. 

Nor was all love shut from him, though his days 
Of passion had consumed themselves to dust. 

It is in vain that we would coldly gaze 
On such as smile upon us ; the heart must 
Leap kindly back to kindness, though disgust 
Hath wean’d it from all worldlings : thus he felt, 

For there was soft remembrance, and sweet trust 
In one fond breast, to which his own would melt, 

And in its tenderer hour on that his bosom dwelt. 


- I. 


30 CHILDE HAROLD’S Canto 111. 

*■ • 
LIV. 

And he had learn’ d to love, — I know not why, 

For this in such as him seems strange of mood, — 

The helpless looks of blooming infancy, 

Even in its earliest nurture ; what subdued, 

To change like this, a mind so far imbued 
With scorn of man, it little boots to know ; 

But thus it was ; and though in solitude 
Small power the nipp’d affections have to grow, 

In him this glowed when all beside had ceased to glow. 

LY. 

And there was one soft breast, as hath been said, 

Which unto his was bound by stronger ties 
Than the church links withal ; and, though unwed, 
That love was pure, and, far above disguise, 

Had stood the test of mortal enmities 
Still undivided, and cemented more 
By peril, dreaded most in female eyes ; 

But this was firm, and from a foreign shore 
Well to that heart might his these absent greetings pour ! 


Canto III. PILGRIMAGE. 

* 

1 . 

The castled crag of Drachenfels (11) 

Frowns o’er the wide and winding Rhine, 

W hose breast of waters broadly swells 
Between the banks which bear the vine, 

And hills all rich with blossomed trees, 

And fields which promise corn and wine, 

And scattered cities crowning these, 

Whose far white walls along -them shine, 
Have strewed a scene, which I should see 
With double joy wert thou with me ! 

2 . 

And peasant girls, with deep blue eyes, 

And hands which offer early flowers. 

Walk smiling o’er this paradise ; 

Above, the frequent feudal towers 
Through green leaves lift their walls of grey, 
And many a rock which steeply lours, 

And nobly arch in proud decay, 

Look o’er this vale of vintage-bowers ; 

But one thing want these banks of Rhine,— 
Thy gentle hand to clasp in mine ! 


32 


CHILDE HAROLD’S 


Canto III. 


3 . 

I send the lilies given to me ; 

Though long before thy hand they touch, 

I know that they must withered be, 

But yet reject them not as such ; 

For I have cherish’d them as dear, 

Because they yet may meet thine eye, 

And guide thy soul to mine even here, 
When thou behold’st them drooping nigh, 
And knowst them gathered by the Rhine, 
And offered from my heart to thine ! 

4 . 

The river nobly foams and flows, 

The charm of this enchanted ground, 

And all its thousand turns disclose 
Some fresher beauty varying round ; 

The haughtiest breast its wish might bound 
Through life to dwell delighted here ; 

Nor could on earth a spot be found 
To nature and to me so dear, 

Could thy dear eyes in following mine 
Still sweeten more these banks of Rhine ! 


Canto III. 


PILGRIMAGE. 


LYI. 

By Coblentz, on a rise of gentle ground* 

There is a small and simple pyramid, 

Crowning the summit of the verdant mound ; 

Beneath its base are heroes’ ashes hid, 

Our enemy’s, — but let not that forbid 
Honour to Marceau ! o’er whose early tomb 
Tears, big tears, gush’d from the rough soldier’s lidV 
Lamenting and yet envying such a doom, 

F ailing for F ranee, whose rights he battled to resume,. 

LVII. 

Brief, brave, and glorious was his young career, — 
His mourners were two hosts, his friends and foes ;; 
And fitly may the stranger lingering here 
Pray for his gallant spirit’s bright repose 
For he was Freedom’s champion, one of those,. 

The few in number, who had not o’erstept 

V 

The charter to chastise which he bestows 

On such as wield the weapons ; he had kept 

The whiteness of his soul, and thus men o’er him wept.”” 

B 2 


34 


CHTLDE HAROLD’S 


Canto til. 


LVIII. 

Here Ehrenbreitstein, (13) with her shattered wall 
Black with the miner’s blast, upon her height 
Yet shows of what she was, when shell and ball 
Rebounding idly on her strength did light ; 

A tower of victory ! from whence the flight 
Of baffled foes was watch’d along the plain : 

But Peace destroy’d what War could never blight, 
And laid those proud roofs bare to Summer’s rain — 

On which the iron shower for years had pour’d in vain. 

* ■ 

LIX. 

Adieu to thee, fair Rhine ! How long delighted 
The stranger fain would linger on his way ! 

Thine is a scene alike where souls united 
Or lonely Contemplation thus might stray ; 

And could the ceaseless vultures cease to prey 
On self-condemning bosoms, it were here, 

Where Nature, nor too sombre nor too gay, 

Wild but not rude, awful yet not austere, 

Is to the mellow Earth as Autumn to the year. 


Canto III. PILGRIMAGE. 35 

LX. 

Adieu to thee again ! a vain adieu ! 

There can be no farewell to scene like thine ; 

The mind is coloured by thy every hue ; 

And if reluctantly the eyes resign 

Their cherished gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine ! 

’Tis with the thankful glance of parting praise ; 

More mighty spots may rise — more glaring shine, 

But none unite in one attaching maze 
The brilliant, fair, and soft, — the glories of old days. 

* ' ' ' l. ‘ 

LXI. 

The negligently grand, the fruitful bloom 
Of coming ripeness, the white city’s sheen, 

The rolling stream, the precipice’s gloom, 

The forest’s growth, and gothic walls between, 

The wild rocks shaped as they had turrets been 
In mockery of man’s art ; and these withal 
A race of faces happy as the scene. 

Whose fertile bounties here extend to all, 

Still springing o’er thy banks, though Empires near them fall. 


CHILDE HAROLD’S 


Canto III. 


36 


LXII. 

But these recede. Above me are the Alps, 

The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls 
Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps, 

And throned Eternity in icy halls 
Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls 
The avalanche — the thunderbolt of snow ! 

All that expands the spirit, yet appals, 

Gather around these summits, as to show 
How earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below. 

LXIII. 

But ere these matchless heights I dare to scan, 

t ■ ' 

There is a spot should not be pass’d in vain, — 

Morat ! the proud, the patriot field ! where man 
May gaze on ghastly trophies of the slain, 

Nor blush for those who conquered on that plain ; 

Here Burgundy bequeath’d his tombless host, 

A bony heap, through ages t<f remain, 

Themselves their monument ; — the Stygian coast 
Unsepulchred they roam’d, and shriek’d eadh wandering 
ghost. (14) 


Canto III. 


PILGRIMAGE. 


LXIV. 

While Waterloo with Cannae’s carnage vies, 

Morat and Marathon twin names shall stand ; 

They were true Glory’s stainless victories, 

Won by the unambitious heart and hand 
Of a proud, brotherly, and civic; band. 

All unbought champions in no princely cause 
Of vice-entail’d Corruption ; they no land 
Doom’d to bewail the blasphemy of laws 
Making kings’ rights divine, by some Draconic clause: 

• I ' ■ 

LXV. 

By a lone wall a lonelier column rears 

\ 

A gray and grief-worn aspect of old days, 

’Tis the last remnant of the wreck of years, 

And looks as with the wild-bewildered gaze 
Of one to stone converted by amaze, 

Yet still with consciousness ; and there it stands 
Making a marvel that it not decays. 

When the coeval pride of human hands, 

Levell’d (15) Aventicum, hath strewed her subject lands. 


CHILDE HAROLD’S 


Canto III. 


38 

# 

LXVI. 

And there — oh ! sweet and sacred be the name ! — 

Julia — the daughter, the devoted — gave 

/ 

Her youth to Heaven ; her heart, beneath a claim 

♦ 

Nearest to Heaven’s, broke o’er a father’s grave. 

Justice is sworn ’gainst tears, and her’s would crave 
The life she lived in ; but the judge was just, 

And then she died on him she could not save. 

Their tomb was simple, and without a bust, 

And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one dust. (16) 

LX VII. 

* 

But these are deeds which should not pass away, 

And names that must not wither, though the earth 
Forgets her empires with a just decay, 

The enslavers and the enslaved, their death and birth : 
The high, the mountain-majesty of worth 
Should be, and shall, survivor of its woe, 

And from its imrportality look forth 
In the sun’s face, like yonder Alpine snow, (17) 
Imperishably pure beyond all things below. 


Canto III. 


PILGRIMAGE. 


39 


LXVII 

Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face, 

The mirror where the stars and mountains view 
The stillness of their aspect in each trace 
Its clear depth yields'of their far height and hue : 
There is too much of man here, to look through 
With a fit mind the might which I beheld ; 

But soon in me shall Loneliness renew 
Thoughts hid, but not less cherish’d than of old, 

Ere mingling with the herd had penn’d me in their fold. 

LXIX.' 

To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind ; 

All are not fit with them to stir and toil. 

Nor is it discontent to keep the mind 
Deep in its fountain, lest it overboil 
In the hot throng, where we become the spoil 
Of our infection, till too late and long 
We may deplore and struggle with the coil, 

In wretched interchange of wrong for wrong 
’Midst a contentious world, striving where none are strong. 


id 


CHILDE HAROLD’S 


Canto III . 


LXX. 

There, in a moment, we may plunge our years 
In fatal penitence, and in the blight 
Of our own soul, turn all our blood to tears, 

And colour things to come with hues of Night; 

The race of life becomes a hopeless flight 
To those that walk in darkness : on. the sea, 

The boldest steer but where their ports invite, 

But there are wanderers o’er Eternity 
Whose bark drives on and on, and anchored ne’er shall be. 

LXXI. 

Is it not better, then, to be alone, 

And love Earth only for its earthly sake ? 

By the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone, 

Or the pure bosom of its nursing lake, 

Which feeds it as a mother who doth make 
A fair but froward infant her own care, 

Kissing its cries away as these awake ; — 

Is it not better thus our lives to wear, 

Than join the crushing crowd, doom’d to inflict or bear: 


Canto III. 


PILGRIMAGE. 


41 


LXXII. 

I live not in myself, but I become 
Portion of that around me; and to me, 

/* 

High mountains are a feeling, but the hum 
Of human cities torture : I can see 
Nothing to loathe in nature, save to be 
A link reluctant in a fleshly chain, 

Class’d among creatures, when the soul can flee, 
And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain 
Of ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain. 






LXXIII. 

And thus I am absorb’d, and this is life : 

I look upon the peopled desert past, 

As on a place of afbny and strife, 

Where, for some sin, to Sorrow I was cast, 

To act and suffer, but remount at last 
With a fresh pinion ; which I feel to spring, 

Though young, yet waxing vigorous, as the blast 
Which it would cope with, on delighted wing, 

Spurning the clay-cold bonds which round our being cling. 






42 


CH1LDE HAROLD’S 


Canto III. 


LXXIV. 

And when, at length, the mind shall be all free 
From what ifr hates in this degraded form, 

Reftyof its carnal life, save what shall be 

t. 

Existent happier in the fly and worm, — 

When elements to elements conform, 

And dust is as it should be, shall I not 
Feel all I see, less dazzling, but more Warm? 

The bodiless thought? the Spirit of each spot? 

Of which, even now, I share at times the immortal lot ? 

LXXV. 

Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part 
Of me and of my soul, as I of them ? 

Is not the love of these deep in my heart 
With a pure passion ? should I not contemn 
All objects, if compared with these ? and stem 
A tide of suffering, rather than forego 
Such feelings for the hard and worldly phlegm 
Of those whose eyes are only turn’d below, 

Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts which dare not glow ? 


Canto III. PILGRIMAGE. 43 

LXXVI. 

But this is not my theme ; and I return 
To that which is immediate, and require 
Those who find contemplation in the urn, 

To look on One, whose dust was once all fire, 

A native of the land where I respire 
The clear air for a while — a passing guest. 

Where he became a being, — whose desire 
Was to be glorious; ’twas a foolish quest, 

The which to gain and keep, he sacrificed all rest. 

LXXVII. 

Here the self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau, 

The apostle of affliction, he who threw 
Enchantment over passion, and from woe 
Wrung overwhelming eloquence, first drew 
The breath which made him wretched ; yet he knew 
How to make madness beautiful, and cast 
O’er erring deeds and thoughts, a heavenly hue 
Of words, like sunbeams, dazzling as they past 
The eyes, which o’er them shed tears feelingly and fast. 


44 


CHILDE HAROLD’S 

' \ 


Canto III. 


LXXVIII. 

His love was passion’s essence — as a tree 
On fire by lightning ; with ethereal flame 
Kindled he was, and blasted ; for to be 
Thus, and enamoured, were in him the same. 

But his was not the love of living dame, 

Nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams, 

But of ideal beauty, which became 
In him existence, and o’erflowing teems 
Along his burning page, distempered though it seems. 

I 

LXXIX. 

1 'his breathed itself to life in Julie, this 
Invested her with all that’s wild and sWeet; 

This hallowed, too, the memorable kiss 
Which every morn his fevered lip would greet. 

From her’s, who but with friendship his would meet ; 
But to that gentle touch, through brain and breast 
Flash’d the thrill’d spirit’s love-devouring heat; 

In that absorbing sigh perchance more blest, 

Than vulgar minds may be with all they seek possest. 


. J /. 

Canto III. PILGRIMAGE. 45 

* 

\ 

LXXX. 

His life was one long war with self-sought foes, 

Or friends by him self-banish’d ; for his mind 
Had grown Suspicion’s sanctuary, and chose 
For its own cruel sacrifice, the kind, 

’Gainst whom he raged with fuiy strange and blind. 

But he was phrenzied, — wherefore, who may know ? 
Since cause might be which skill could never find ; 

But he was phrenzied by disease or woe, 

To that worst pitch of all, which wears a reasoning show. 


LXXXI 

For then he was inspired, and from him came, 

As from the Pythian’s mystic cave of yore, 

Those oracles which set the world in flame, 

Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more : 

Did he not this for France ? which lay before 

Bowed to the inborn, tyranny of years ? 

f . - * 

Broken and trembling, to the yoke she* tore, 

Till by the voice of him and his compeers, 

Roused up to too much wrath which follows o’ergrown fears ? 


46 


CHTLDE HAROLD’S 


Canto II 1 4 


LXXXII. 

« / 

They made themselves a fearful monument ! 

The wreck of old opinions — things which grew 
Breathed from the birth of time : the veil they rent, 
And what behind it lay, all earth shall view. 

But good with ill they also overthrew, 

Leaving but mins, wherewith to rebuild 
Upon the same foundation, and renew 
Dungeons and thrones, which the same hour re-fill’d, 
As heretofore, because ambition was self-will’d. 

LXXXIII. 

But this will not endure, nor be endured ! 

Mankind have felt their strength, and made it felt. 
They might have used it better, but, allured 
By their new vigour, sternly have they dealt 
On one another ; pity ceased to melt 
With her once natural charities. But they, 

Who in oppression’s darkness caved had dwelt, 

They were not -eagles, nourish’d with the day; 

What marvel then, at times, if they mistook their prey ? 


Canto III. 


47 


PILGRIMAGE. 

I 

LXXXIV. 

What deep wounds ever closed without a scar? 

The heart’s bleed longest, and but heal to wear 
That which disfigures it ; and they who war 
With their own hopes, and have been vanquish’d, bear 
Silence, but not submission : in his lair 
Fix’d Passion holds his breath, until the hour 
Which shall atone for years ! none need despair : 

It came, it cometh, and will come, — the power 
To punish or forgive — in one we shall be slower. 

LXXXV. 

Clear, placid Leman, thy contrasted lake, 

With the wide world I dwelt in, is a thing 
Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake 
Earth’s troubled waters for a purer spring. 

This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing 
To waft me from distraction ; once I loved 

I 

Torn ocean’s roar, but thy soft murmuring 
Sounds sweet as if a sister’s voice reproved, 

That I with stem delights should e’er have been so moved. 


48 CHILDE HAROLD’S Canto III , 

t 

LXXXVI. 

It is the hush of night, and all between 

Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, 

Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen, 

Save darken’d Jura, whose capt heights appear 
Precipitously steep ; and drawing near, 

There breathes a living fragrance from the shore, 

Of flowers yet fresh with childhood ; on the ear' 

Drops the light drip of the suspended oar, * * 

Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more ; 

LXXXVII. 

He is an evening reveller, who makes 
His life an infancy, and sings his fill ; 

At intervals, some bird from out the brakes, 

V 

Starts into voice a moment, then is still. 

There' seems a floating whisper on the hill, 

But that is fancy, for the starlight dews 
All silently their tears of love instil, 

Weeping themselves away, till they infuse 
Deep into Nature’s breast the spirit of her hues. 


Canto III. 


PILGRIMAGE. 


49 


LXXXVIII. 

Ye stars ! which are the poetry of heaven ! 

If in your bright leaves we would read the fate 
Of men and empires, — ’tis to be forgiven, 

That in our aspirations to be great, 

Our destinies o’erleap their mortal state, 

And claim a kindred with you ; for ye are 
A beauty vnd a mystery, and create 
In us such love and reverence from afar, 

That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a 
star. 

» LXXXIX. 

All heaven and earth are still — though not in sleep,’ 

Eut breathless, as we grow when feeling most ; 

And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep : — 

All heaven and earth are still : From the high host 
Of stars, to the lull’d lake and mountain-coast, 

All is concentered in a life intense, 

Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, 

But hath a part of being, and a sense 
Of that which is of all Creator and defence. 

C 


50 


CHILDE HAROLD’S 


Canto II h r 


• * . % * ' 

XC. 

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt 
In solitude, where we are least alone ; 

A truth, which through our being then doth melt 
And purifies from seif : it is a tone, 

The soul and source of music, which makes known 
Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm, 

Like to the fabled Cytherea’s zone, 

Binding all things with beauty , — ’twould disarm 
The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm. 

XCI. 

"Not vainly did the early Persian make 

. His altar the high places and the peak 

Of earth-o’ergazing mountains, (20) and thus take 

A fit and unwall’d temple, there to seek 

The Spirit, in whose honour shrines are weak, 

Uprear’d of human hands. Come, and compare 

Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek, 

With Nature’s realms of worship, earth and air, 

\ 

No fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy prayer! 


Canto III. 


PILGRIMAGE. 


51 


XC1I. 

The sky is changed ! — and such a change ! Oh night, (21) 
And Storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, 

Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light 
Of a dark eye in woman ! Far along, 

From peak to peak, the rattling crags among 
Leaps the live thunder ' Not from one lone cloud, 

But every mountain now hath found a tongue, 

And Jura answers, through her misty shroud. 

Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud ! 

XCH1.V 

And this is in the night : — Most glorious night ! 

Thou wert not sent for slumber ! let me be 
A sharer in thy fierce and far delight, — 

A portion of the tempest and of thee •' 

IIow the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea, 

And the big rain comes dancing to the earth 1 
And now aguin ’tis black, — and now, the glee 
Of the loud hill shakes with its mountain-mirth, 

As if they did rejoice o’er a young earthquake’s birth. 


CHILDE HAROLD’S 


Canto III. 


52 


XCIY. 

Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between 
Heights which appear as lovers who have parted 
In hate, whose mining depths sp intervene. 

That they can meet no more, though broken-hearted ; 
Though in their souls, which thus each other thwarted, 
Love was the very root of the fond rage 
Which blighted their life’s bloom, and then departed : — 
Itself expired, but leaving them an age 
Of years all winters, — war within themselves to wage. 

XCY. 

Now, where the quick Rhone thus hath cleft his way, 
The mightiest of the storms hath ta’en his stand : 

For here, not one, but many make their play, 

And fling their thunder-bolts from hand to hand, 
Flashing and cast around : of all the band, 

The brightest through these parted hills hath fork’d 
His lightnings, — as if he did understand, 

That in such gaps as desolation work’d, 

There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurk’d. 


Canto III. 


PILGRIMAGE. 


i 


53 


XCVI. • 

Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings ! ye ! 
With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul 
To make these felt and feeling, well may be 
Things that have made me watchful ; the far roll 
Of your departing voices, is the knoll 
Of what in me is sleepless, — if I rest. 

But where of ye, oh tempests ! is the goal ? 

Are ye like those within the human breast? 

Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest ? 

XCVII. 

Could I embody and unbosom now 
That which is most within me, — could I wreak 
My thpughts upon expression, and thus throw 
Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak, 
All that I would have sought, and all I seek, 

Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe — into one word, 
And that one word were Lightning, I would speak ; 
But as it is, I live and die unheard, 

With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword. 


54 


CHILDE HAROLD’S 


Canto ITT. 


XCVIII. 

The mom is up again, the dewy morn, 

With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom, 
Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn, 

And living as if earth contain’d no tomb,— 

And glowing into day : we may resume 
The march of our existence : and thus I, 

Still on thy shores, fair Leman ! may find room 
And food for meditation, nor pass by 
Much, that may give us pause, if pondered fittingly. 

XCIX. 

Clarens ! sweet Clarens, birth-place of deep Love ! 

Thine air is the young breath of passionate thought ; 

Thy trees take root in Love ; the snows above 
The very Glaciers have his colours caught, 

And sun-set into rose-hues sees them wrought (22) 

By rays which sleep there lovingly : the rocks, 

The permanent crags, tell here of Love, who sought 
In them a refuge from the worldly shocks, 

Which stir and sting the soul with hope that woos, then mocks. 


Canto III. PILGRIMAGE. 55 


Clarens ! by heavenly feet thy paths are trod, — 
Undying Love’s, who here ascends a throne 
To which the steps ai;e mountains; where the god 
Is a pervading life and light, — so shown 
Not on those summits solely, nor alone 
In the still cave and forest; o’er the flower 
His eye is sparkling, and his breath hath blown, 

His soft and summer breath, whose tender power 
Passes the strength of storms in their most desolate hour. 

CL 

All things are here of him; from the black pines, 
Which are his shade on high, and the loud roar 
Of torrents, where he listeneth, to the vines 
Which slope his green path downward to the shore, 
Where the bowed waters meet him, and adore, 

Kissing his feet with murmurs ; and the wood, 

The covert of old trees, with trunks all hoar, 

But light leaves, young as joy, stands where it stood, 
Offering to him, and his, a populous solitude, 


56 


CHILDE HAROLD’S 


Canto III . 


A populous solitude of bees and birds, 

And fairy-form’d and many-coloured things, 

mo worship him with notes more sweet than words, 

| And innocently open their glad wings. 

Fearless and full of life : the gush of springs, 

And fall of lofty fountains, and the bend 

Of stirring branches, and the bud which brings 

'Fhe swiftest thought of beauty, here extend, 

F '• 

Mingling and made by Love, unto one mighty end. 

cm. 

He who hath loyed not, here would learn that love, 
And make his heart a spirit; he who knows 
That tender mystery, will love the more, 

For this is Love’s recess, where vain men’s woes. 

And the world’s waste, have driven him far from those, 
For ’tis his nature to advance or die ; 

He stands not still, but or decays, or grows 
Into a boundless blessing, which may vie 
With the immortal lights, in its eternity ! 


Canto III. 


PILGRIMAGE. 


5T< 


CIV. 

’Twas not for fiction chose Rousseau this spot,, 

Peopling' it with affections ; but he found 
It was the scene which passion must allot 
To the mind’s purified beings; ’twas the ground' 

Where early Love his Psyche’s zone unbound, 

And hallowed it with loveliness : ’tis lone, 

And wonderful, and deep, and hath a sounds 
And sense, and sight of. sweetness; here the Rhone' 
Hath spread himsdlf a couch, the Alps have rear’d a throne.. 

CV. 

Lausanne! and Terney ! ye have been the abodes (23) 

Of names which unto you bequeath’d a name; 

Mortals', who sought and found, by dangerous roads,, 

A path to perpetuity of fame: 

They were gigantic minds, anji their steep aim,. 

Was, Titan-like, on daring doubts to pile. 

Thoughts which should call down thunder, and the flame 

i 

Of Heaven, again assail’d, if Heaven the while , 

On man and man’s research could deign do more than smile 

C 2 


>8 


GHILDE HAROLD’S 


Canto III. 


CVI. 

The one was fire and fickleness, a child, 

Most mutable in wishes, but in mind, 

A wit as various, — gay, grave, sage, or wild,'— 
Historian, bard, philosopher, combined; 

He multiplied himself among mankind, 

The Proteus of their talents : But his own 
Breathed most in ridicule, — which, as the wind, 

Blew where it listed, laying all things prone, — 

N T ow to o’erthrow a fool, and now to shake a throne. 

i -*■ * 

CVII. 

The other, deep and slow, exhausting thought, 

And hiving wisdom with each studious year, 

In meditation dwelt, with learning wrought, 

And shaped his weapon with an edge severe. 

Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer ; 

The lord of irony, — that master-spell, 

Which stung his foes to wrath, which grew from fear, 
And doom’d him to the zealot’s ready Hell, 

'Which answei-s to all doubts so eloquently well. 


Canto III. 


PILGRIMAGE. 


CVIII. 

Yet, peace be with their ashes, — for by them, 

If merited, the penalty is paid ; 

It is not ours to judge, — far less condemn ; 

The hour must come when such things shall be made 
Known unto all, — or hope and dread allay’d 
By slumber, on ope pillow, — in the dust, 

Which, thus much we are sure, must lie decay’d ; 
And when it shall revive, as is our trust, 

’Twill be to be forgiven, or suffer what is just. 

CIX. 

But let me quit man’s works, again to read 
His Maker’s, spread around me, and suspend 
This page, which from my reveries I feed, 

Until it seems prolonging without end. 

The clouds above me to the white Alps tend, 

And I must pierce them, and survey whatever 
May be permitted, as my steps I bend 
To their most great and growing region, where 
The earth to her embrace compels the powers of air. 


)o 


CHILDE HAROLD’S 


Canto III. 


CX. 

Italia ! too, Italia ! looking on thee, 

Full flashes on the soul the light of ages, 

Since the fierce Carthaginian almost won thee, 

To the last halo of the chiefs and sages, 

Who glorify thy consecrated pages ; 

Thou wert the throne and grave of empires ; still, 
The fount at which the panting mind assuages 
Her thirst of knowledge, quaffing there her fill, 
Plows from, the eternal source of Rome’s imperial hill. 

CXI. 

Thus far I have proceeded in a theme 
Renewed with no kind auspices : — to feel 
We are not what we have been, and to deem 
We are not what we shpuld be, — and to steel 
The heart against itself; and to conceal, 

With a proud caution, love, or hate, or aught,— 
Passion or feeling, purpose, grief or zeal, — 

Which is the tyrant spirit of our thought, 

Is a stern task of soul :-»-No matter, — it is taught. 


Canto III. 


PILGRIMAGE. 


61 


i * - 

CXII. 

And for these words, thus woven into song, 

It may be that they are a harmless wile, — 

The colouring of the scenes which fleet along, 

Which I would seize, in passing, to beguile 
My breast, or that of others, for a while. 

Fame is the thirst of youth,— but I am not 
So young as to regard men’s frown or smile, 

As loss or guerdon of a glorious lot; 

I stood and stand alone, — remembered or forgot. 

CXIII. 

I have not loved' the world, nor the world me ; 

I have not flattered it’s rank breath, nor bow’d 
To it’s idolatries a patient knee, — 

Nor coin’d my cheek to smiles, — nor cried aloud 
In worship of an echo; in the crowd 
They could'not deem me one of such ; I stood 
Among them, but not of them; in a shroud 
Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could, 
Had I not filed(24) my mind, which thus itself subdued. 


€2 


CHILDE HAROLD’S 


Canto III 


CXIV. 

I have not loved the world, nor the world me,— 

But let. us part fair foes ; I do believe, 

Though I have found them not, that there may be 
Words which are things, — hopes which will not deceive, 
And virtues which are merciful, nor weave 
Snares for the failing: 1 would also deem 
O’er other’s griefs that some sincerely grieve ;(25) 

That two, or one, are almost what they seem,— 

That goodness is no name, and happiness no dreana. 

cxv. 

My daughter! with thy name this song begun — 

My daughter! with thy name thus mucl) shall end — 

I see thee, pot, — I hear thee not, — but none 
Can be so wrapt m thee ; thou art the friend 
To whom the shadows of far years extend : 

Albeit my brow thou never should’st behold, 

My voice shall with thy future visions blend, 

And reach into thy heart, — when mine is cold)— 

A token and a tone) even from thy father’s mould- 


Ganto III. 


PILGRIMAGE. 


63 


CXVI. 

To aid thy mind’s developement, — to watch 
Thy dawn of little joys, — to sit and see 
Almost thy very growth, — 4o view thee catch 
Knowledge of objects, — wonders yet to thee ! 

To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee, 

And print on thy soft cheek a parent’s kiss,~- 
This, it should seem, w r as not reserv’d for me ; 
Yet this was in my nature : — as it is, 

I know not what is there, yet something like to this. 


CXVII. 

Yet, though dull Hate as duty should be taught, 

I know that thou wilt love me ; though my name 
Should be shut from thee, as a spell still fraught 
With desolation, — and a broken claim : 

Though the grave closed between us, — ’twere the same, 
I know that thou wilt love me ; though to drain 
My blood from out thy being, were an aim, 

And an attainment, — all would be in vain, — 

Still thou would’st love me, still that more than life retain. 


64 CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE. Canto III. 


CXVIII. 

The child of love, — though born in bitterness, 

And nurtured in convulsion. Of thy sire 
These were the elements, -^-and thine no less. 

As yet such are around thee, — but thy fire 
Shall be more tempered, and thy hope far higher. 
Sweet be thy cradled slumbers ! O’er the sea, 

And from the mountains where I now respire, 

F ain ’would I waft such blessing upon thee, 

As, with a sigh, I deem thou might’st have been to me ! 






> 


S 




NOTES. 






• 1 


✓ 

























« 

1 . ■ 


i 







NOTES. 

% 


Note 1, page 12, line 5. 

In “ pride of place " here last the Eagle flew. 

“ Pride of place” is a term of falconry, and means the 
highest pitch of flight. — See Macbeth, &c. 

“ An Eagle towering in his pride of place 
“ Was by a mousing Owl hawked at and killed.” 

Note 2, page 13, line 9. 

Such 'as Harmodius drew on Athens ' tyrant lord. 

See the famous song on Harmodius and Aristogiton. — 
The best English translation is in Bland’s Anthology, by 
Mr. Denman. 

\ 

“ With myrtle my sword will I wreathe,” &c> 

Note 3, page 13, line 17. 

And all went merry as a marriage-bell. 

On the night previous to the action, it is said that a ball 
was given at Brussels. 

Notes 4 and 5, page 16, line 9. 

And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clansman's ears. 

Sir Evan Cameron, and his descendant Donald, the 
“ gentle Lochiel” of the “ forty-five.” 


NOTES. 


<18 

Note 6, page 16, line 10. 

And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves . 

The wood of Soignies is supposed to be a remnant of the 
“ forest of Ardennes,” famous in Boiardo’s Orlando, and 
immortal in Shakespeare’s “ As you like it.” It is also ce- 
lebrated in Tacitus as being the spot of successful defence 
by the Germans against the Roman encroachments. — I have 
ventured to adopt the name connected with nobler associa- 
tions than those of mere slaughter. 

Note 7, page 18, line 9. 

I turned from all she brought to those she could not bring . 

My guide from Mont St. Jean over the field seemed intel- 
ligent and accurate. The place where Major Howard fell 
was not far from two tall and solitary trees (there was a 
third cut down, or shivered in the battle) which stand a few 
yards from each other at a pathway’s side. — Beneath these 
he died and was buried. The body has since been removed 
to England. A small hollow for the present marks where 
it lay, but will probably soon be effaced ; the plough has 
been upon it, and the grain is. 

After pointing out the different spots where Picton and 
other gallant men had perished ; the guide said, “ here 
Major Howard lay ; I was near him when wounded.” I 
told him my relationship, and he seemed then still more 
anxious to point out the particular spot and circumstances. 
The place is one of the most marked in the field from the 
peculiarity of the two trees abovementioned. 

T went on horseback twice over the field, comparing it 


NOTES. 


69 


■ ' / 

with my recollection of similar scenes. Asa plain, Water- 
loo seems marked out for the scene of some great action, 
though this may be mere imagination : I have viewed 
with attention those of Platea, Troy, Mantinea, Leuctra, 
Chaeroned, and Marathon ; and the field around Mont St. 
Jean and Hougoumont appears to want little but a better 
cause, and that uhJefinable but impressive halo which the 
lapse of ages throws around a celebrated spot, to vie in 
interest with any or all of these, except perhaps the last 
mentioned. 

\ 

Note 8, page 20, line 6. 

Like to the apples on the Dead Sea's shore. 

The (fabled) apples on the brink of the lake Asphaltes 
were said to be fair Without, and within ashes. — Vide Taci- 
tus, Histor. 1. 5. 7. 

Note 9, page 23, line last. 

For sceptred cynics earth were far too wide a den. 

The great error of Napoleon, “ if we have writ our annals 
true,” was a continued obtrusion on mankind of his want 
of all community of fueling for or with them ; perhaps more 
offensive to human vanity than the active cruelty of more 
trembling and suspicious tyranny. 

Such were his speeches to public assemblies as well as 
individuals : and the single expression winch he is jsakUo 
have used on returning to Paris after the Russian winter had 
destroyed his army, rubbing his hands over a fire, “ 1 his is 
pleasanter than Moscow,” would probably alienate mere 


NOTES. 


70 

favour from his cause than the destruction and reverses 
which led to the remark. 

Note 10, page 27, line 6. 

What leant these outlaivs conquerors should have ? 

“ What wants that knave 

“ That a king should have ? 

w as King James’s question on meeting Johnny Armstrong 
and his followers in full accoutrements.— See the ballad. 

Note 11, page 31, line 1. 

The castled crag of Drachenfels . 

The castle of Drachenfels stands on the. highest summit of 
“ the Seven Mountains,” over the Rhine banks ; it is in 
rums, and connected with some singular traditions .- it is the 
first in view on the road from Bohn, but on the opposite ’ 
side of the river ; on this bank, nearly facing it, are the re- 
mains of another called the Jew’s castle, and a large cross 
commemorative of the murder of a chief by his brother : the 
number of castles and cities along the course of the Rhine 
on both sides is very great, and their situations remarkably 
beautiful. 

Note 12, page 33, line last. 

1 he whiteness of his soul , and thus men o’er him wept. 

The monument of the young and lamented General Mar- 
ceau (killed by a rifle-ball at Alterkirchen on the last day of - 
the fourth year of the French republic) still remains as de- 
scribed. 4 

The inscriptions on hie monument are rather too long, 
and not required : his name was enough 5 France adored, 


NOTES. 


71 


and her enemies admired ; both wept over him. — His fune- 
ral was attended by the generals and detachments from 
both armies. In the same grave General Hoche is interred, 
a gallant man also in ever}' sense of the word, but though 
he distinguished himself greatly in battle, he had not the 
good fortune to die there ; his death was attended by sus- 
picions of poison. 

A separate monument (not over his body, which is buried 
by Marceau’s) is raised for him near Andemach, opposite 
to which one of his most memorable exploits was performed, 
in throwing a bridge to an island on the Rhine. The shape 
and style are different from that of Marceau’s, and the in- 
scriptibn more simple and pleasing. 

“ The Army of the Sambre and Meuse 
“ to its Commander in Chief 
“ Hoche.” 

This is all, and as it should be. Hoche was esteemed 
among the first of France’s earlier generals before Buona- 
parte monopolized her triumphs. — He whs the destined 
commander of the invading aimy of Ireland. 

Note 13, page 34, line 1. 

Here Ehrenbreitsiein , with her shattered wall. 

Ehrenbreitstein, i. e. “ the broad stone of honour,” one 
of the strongest fortresses in Europe, was dismantled and 
blown up by the F rench at the truce of LeoBen. — It had 
been and could only be reduced by famine or treache- 
ry. It yielded to the former, aided by surprise. After hav- 
ing seen the fortifications of Gibraltar and Malta, it did not 


72 


NOTES. 


much strike by comparison, but the situation is commanding. 
General Marceau besieged it in vain for some time, and i slept 
in*a room where I was shown a window at which he is said 
to have been standing observing the progress of the siege by 
moonlight, when a ball struck immediately below it. 

Note 14, page 30, line last. 

Unsepulchred they roamed , and shrieked each wandering 
ghost. 

The chapel is destroyed, and the pyramid of bones dimi- 
nished to a small number by the Burgundian legion in the ser- 
vice ol 1 ranee, who anxiously' eftaced this record of their an- 
cestorS’ less successful invasions. A few still remain not- 
withstanding the pains taken by the Burgundians for ages, 
(all who passed that way removing a bone to their own coun- 
try) and the less justifiable larcenies of the Swiss postillions, 
who carried them off to sell for knife-handles, a purpose for 
which the whiteness imbibed by the bleaching of years had 
rendered them in great request. Of these relics i ventured 
to bring away as much as may have made the quarter of a 
hero, for which ihe sole excuse is, that if I had not, the next 
passer by might have perverted them to worse, uses than the 
careful preservation which 1 intend for them. 

Note 15, page 37, line last. 

Levelled Aventicum hath strewed her subject lands. 

Aventicum (near Morat) was the Roman capital of Helve- 
tia, where Avenches now stands. 


f 


NOTES. 73 

Note 16, j5age 38, line 9. 

And held within their urn one min i , one heart , one dust. 

Julia Alpinula, a young Aventian priestess, died soon af- 
ter a vain endeavour to save her father, condemned to death 
as a traitor by Aulus Ctecina. Her epitaph was discovered 
many years ago ; — it is thus — 

Julia Alpinula 
Hie jaceo. 

Infelicis patris, infelix proles 
Deae Aventiae Sacerdos ; 

Exorare patris necem non potui 
Male mori in fatis ille erat. 

Vixi annos XXIII. 

I know of no human composition so affecting as this, nor a 
history of deeper interest. These are the names and ac- 
tions which ought not to perish, and to which we turn with 
a true and healthy tenderness, from the wretched and glit- 
tering detail of a confused mass of conquests and battles, 
with which the mind is roused for a time to a false and feve- 
rish sympathy, from whence it recurs at length with all the 
nausea consequent on such intoxication. 

Note 17, page 38, line 17. 

In the Sun's face, like yonder Alpine snoxo. 

This is written in the eye of Mont Blanc (June 3d, 1816) 
which even at this distance dazzles mine. 

(July 20th ) I this day observed for some time the dis- 
tinct reflection of Mont Blanc and Mont Argentiere in the 
D 


74 


NOTES'. 


calm of the lake, which f was crossing in my boat ; the 
distance of these mountains from their mirror is 60 miles. 

Note 18, page 40, line 12. 

By the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone. 

The colour of the Rhone at Genevans blue, to a depth of 
tint which I have never seen equalled in water, salt or fresh, 
except in the Mediterranean and Archipelago. 

Note 19, page 44, line last. 

Than vulgar minds may be with all they seek possest. 

This refers to the account in his “ Confessions” of his pas- 
sion for the Comtesse d’Houdetot (the mistress of St. Lam- 
bert) and his long walk every morning for the sake of the sin- 
gle kiss which was the common salutation of French ac- 
quaintance. — Rousseau’s description of his feelings on this 
occasion may be considered as the most passionate, yet not 
impure description and expression of love that ever kindled 
into words ; which after all must be felt, from their very 
force, to be inadequate to the delineation : a painting can 
give no sufficient idea of the ocean. 

Note 20, page 50, line 12. 

Of earth-o'er gazing mountains , and thus take. 

It is to be recollected, that the most beautiful and impres- 
sive doctrines of the divine Founder of Christianity were de- 
livered, not in the Temple , but on the Mount. 

To wave the question of devotion, and turn to human elo- 
quence, — the most effectual and splendid specimens were 
not pronounced within walls. Demosthenes addressed the 
public and popular assemblies. Cicero spoke in the forum. 


NOTES. 


75 


That this added to their effect on the mind of both orator and 

P 

hearers, may be conceived from the difference between what 
we read of the emotions then and there produced, and those 
we ourselves experience in the perusal in the closet. It is 
one thing to read the Iliad at Sigaeum and on the tumuli, or 
by the springs with mount Ida above, and the plain and 
rivers and Archipelago around you : and another to trim 
your taper over it in a snug library — this I know. 

Were the early and rapid progress of what is called Me- 
thodism to be attributed to any cause beyond the enthusiasm 
excited by its vehement faith and doctrines (the truth or er- 
ror of which I presume neither to canvas nor to question) I 
should- venture to ascribe it to the practice of preaching in 
the fields , and the unstudied and extemporaneous effusions 
of its teachers. 

The Mussulmans, whose erroneous devotion* (at least in 
the lowei; orders) is most sincere, and therefore impressive, 
are accustomed to repeat their prescribed orisons and pray- 
ers wherever they may be at the stated hours — of course fre- 
quently in the open air, kneeling upon a light mat (which 
they carry for the purpose of a bed or cushion as required) ; 
the ceremony lasts some minutes, during which they are 
totally absorbed, and only living in their supplication ; no- 
thing can disturb them. On me the simple and entire sin- 
cerity of these men, and the spirit which appeared to be 
within and upon them, made a far greater impression than 
any general rite which was ever performed in places of 
worship, of which I have seen those of almost every persua- 
sion under the sun ; including most of our own sectaries, and 
the Greek, the Catholic, the Armenian, the Lutheran, the 


76 


NOTES. 


Jewish, and the Mahometan. Many of the negroes, of 
whom there are numbers in the Turkish empire, are idola- 
ters, and have free exercise of their belief and its rites : some 
of these I had a distant view of at Patras, and from what I 
could make out of them, they appeared to be of a truly Pa- 
gan description, and not very agreeable to a spectator. 

Note 21, page 51, line 1. 

The sky is changed / and such a change ! Oh night. 

The thunder-storms to which these lines refer, occurred on 
the 13th of June, 1816, at midnight. I have seen among the 
Acroceraunian mountains of Chimari several more terrible, 
but none more beautiful. 

Note 22, page 54, line 14. 

And sunset into rose-hues sees them wrought. 

Rousseau’s Heloise, Lettrel7, part 4, note. “Cesmon- 
“ tagnes sont si hautes qu’une demi-heure apres le soleil 
“ couche, leurs sommets sont encore eclaires de ses rayons ; 
“ dont le rouge forme sur ces cimes blanches une belle cou- 
“ leur de rose qu’on apperjoit de fort loin.” 

This applies more particularly to the heights over Meillerie. 

“ J’allai a Vevay loger a la Clef, et pendant deux jours que 
“ j’y restai sans voir personne, je pris pour cette ville un 
“ amour qui m’a suivi dans tous mes voyages, et qui m’y 
“ a fait etablir enfin les heroes de mon roman. Je dirois 
“ voluntiers a ceux qui ont du gout et qui sont sensibles : 
“ allez a Yevai — visitez le pays, examinez les sites, pro- 
“ naenez-vous sur le lac, et dites si la Nature n’a pas fait ce 


I!5t>TES. 


77 


“ beau pays pour une Julie, pour One Claire et pour un St 
“Preux; mais ne les y cherchez pas.” Les Confessions, 
“ livre iv. page 306. Lyons ed. 1796. 

In J uly, 1816, 1 made a voyage round the Lake of Geneva ; 
and, as far as my own observations have led me in a not unin- 
terested, nor inattentive survey of all the scenes most celebra- 
ted by Rousseau in his “ Heloise,” I can safely say, that in this 
there is no exaggeration. It would be difficult to see Clarens 
(with the scenes around it, Vevay, Chillon, Boveret, St. Gin- 
go, Meillerie, Erian, and the entrances of the Rhone), without 
being forcibly struck with its peculiar adaptation to the per- 
sons and events with which it has been peopled. But fhisi3 
not all ; the feeling with which all around Clarens, and the 
opposite rocks of Meillerie is invested, is of a still higher and 
more comprehensive order than the mere sympathy with in- 
dividual passion ; it is a sense of the existence of love in Its 
most extended and sublime capacity, and of our own partici- 
pation of its good and of its glory : it is the great principle of 
the universe, which is there more condensed, but not less ma-* 
nifested ; and of which, though knowing ourselves a part, we 
lose our individuality, and mingle in the beauty of the whole. 

If Rousseau had never written, nor lived, the same asso- 
ciations would not less have belonged to such scenes. He 
has added to the interest of his works i>y their adoption ; he 
has shown his sense of their beauty by the selection ; but 
they have done that for him which no human being coultf do 
for them. 

I had the fortune (good or evil as it might be), to sail from 
Meillerie (where we landed for some lime), to St. Gingo dur- 


78 


NOTES. 


mg' a lake storm, which added to the magnificence of all 
around, although occasionally accompanied by danger to the 
boat, which was small and overloaded. By a coincidence 
which I could not regret, it was over this very part of the 
lake that Rousseau had driven the boat of St. Preux and Ma- 
dame Wolmar to Meillerie for shelter during a tempest. 

On gaining the shore at St. Gingo, we found that the wind 
had been sufficiently strong to blow down some fine old ches- 
nut trees on the lower part of the mountains. On the height 
is a seat called the Chateau de Clarens. The hills are co- 
vered with vineyards, and interspersed with some small but 
beautiful woods ; one of these was named the “ Bosquet de 
Julie,” and it is remarkable that, though long ago cut down 
by the brutal selfishness of the monks of St. Bernard, (to 
whom the land appertained), that the ground might be in- 
closed into a vineyard for the miserable drones of an execra- 
ble superstition, the inhabitants of Clarens still point out the 
spot where its trees stood, calling it by the name which 
consecrated aud survived them. 

Rousseau has not been particularly fortunate in the pre- 
servation of the “ local habitations” he has given to “airy 
“nothings.” The Prior of Great St. Bernard has cut down 
some of his woods for the sake of a few casks of wine, and 
Buonaparte has levelled part of the rocks of the Meillerie in 
improving the road to the Simplon. The road is an excellent 
one, but I cannot quite agree with a remark which I heard 
made, that “La route vaut mieux que les souvenirs,” 


> 


NOTES. 79 

Note 23, page 57, line 10. 

Lausanne! and Ferney! ye have been the abodes. 
Voltaire and Gibbon. 

Note 24, page 61, line last. 

Had I not filed my mind , which thus itself subdued. 

“ If it be thus, 

“ For B^nquo’s issue have I filed my mind.” 

Macbeth. 

Note 25, page 62, line 7. 

O'er others' griefs , that some sincerely grieve. ' 

It is said by Rochefoucault that “ there is always some- 
“ thing in the misfortunes of men’s best friends not displeas- 
“ ingto them.” 


i 

THE END. 

• / 

* . > * ... « 












' . - 







■ 

. 

























* 






. ‘ 1 




♦ V. 




S 

• 









£r. 







V 













•f > 















. > \ 

'1 













< 























' . 


■» / 










* 










/ 




m l\ I 






POEMS 




t 

. » 


I * 

# 














*& ‘ 






D 2 








POEMS. 




SONNET ON GHILLON. 


ETERNAL spirit of the chain ess mind! 

Brightest in dungeons, Liberty ! thou art, 

For there thy habitation is the heart — 

The heart which love of thee alone can bind; ; 
And when thy sons to fetters are consigned — 

To fetters, and the damp vault’s dayless gloom, 
Their country conqygra with their martyrdom, 
And Freedom’s fame finds wings on every wind. 


4 


FOEMfc. 


Chillon ! thy prison is a holy place, 

And thy sad floor an altar — for ’twas trod, 

Until his very sfeps have left a trace 
Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod, 

By Bonnivard .'(l) — May none those marks efface ! 
Fer they appeal from tyranny to God. 


v 


THE PRISONERS OF CHILLON 

A FABLE. 


I. 

MY hair is grey, but not with years, 

Nor grew it white 
In a single night, (2) 

As men’s have grown from sudden fears : 
My limbs are bowed, though not with toil* 
But rusted with a vile repose, 

For they have been a dungeon’s spoil, 

A 

And mine has been the fate of those 
To whom the goodly earth and air 
Are bann’d, and barr’d — forbidden fare ; 
But this was for my father’s faith 
I s uttered chains and courted death ; 


POEMS. 


That father perish’d at the stake 
For tenets he would not forsake ; 

And for the same his lineal race 
In darkness found a dwelling-place ; 

We were seven — who now are one. 

Six in youth, and one in age. 

Finish’d as they had begun, 

Proud of Persecution’s rage ; 

One in fire, and two in field, 

Their belief with blood have seal’d ; 

Dying as their father died, 

For the God their foes denied ; 

Three were in a dungeon cast, 

Of whom this wreck is left the last. 

II. 

There are seven pillars of gothic mould, 
In Chillon’s dungeons deep and old. 
There are seven columns, massy and grey 
Dim with a dull imprisoned ray, 

A sunbeam which hath lost its way, 

And through the crevice and the cleft 
Of the thick wall is fallen and lefts 


POEMS. 


* I 

J 4 

Creeping o’er the floor so damp, 

Like a marsh’s meteor lamp : 

And in each pillar there is a ring, 

And in each ring there is a chain ; 

That iron is a cankering thing, 

For in these limbs its teeth remain, 

With marks that will not wear away, 

Till I have done with this new day, 
Which now is painful to these eyes 
Which have not seen the sun so rise 
For years — 1 cannot count them o’er, 

I lost their long and heavy score, 

When my last brother droop’d and died. 
And I lay living by his side. 

III. 

They chain’d us each to a column stone, 

I • ' 

And we were three — yet, each alone, 

We could not move a single pace, 

We could not see each other’s face, 

But with that pale and vivid light 
That made us strangers in our sight ,* 


POEMS. 


And thus together — ye apart, 

Fettered in hand, but pined in heart : 

’Twas still some solace in the dearth 

Of the pure elements of earth, 

To hearken to each other’s speech, 

And ^ach turn comforter to each, 

With some new hope, or legend old, 

Or song heroically bold ; 

But even these at length grew cold. 

Our voices took a dreary tone, 

An echo of the dungeon-stone, 

A grating sound— not full and free 

As they of yore were wont to be : 

It might be fancy — but to me 

They never sounded like our own. 

* 

IV. 

I was the eldest of the three, 

And to uphold and cheer the rest 
I ought to do — and did my best — 
And each did well in his degree. 


POEMS. 


The youngest, whom my father loved. 
Because our mother’s brow was given 
To him — with eyes as blue as heaven, 
For him my soul was sorely moved ; 
And truly might It be distrest 
To see such bird in such a nest ; 

For he was beautiful as day— 

(When day was beautiful to me 
As to young eagles, being free) — 

A polar day, which will not see 
A sunset till its summer’s gone, 

Its sleepless summer of long light. 

The snow-clad offspring of the sun : 

And thus he was as pure and bright, 

And in his natural spirit gay, 

With tears for nought but other’s i 11s, 
And then they flowed like mountain rills, 
Unless he could assuage the woe 
Which he abhorr’d to view below. 

V. 

The other was as pure of mind. 

But formed to combat with his kind; 


POEMS. 

• i 

Strong in his frame, and of a mood 
Which ’gainst the world in war had stood, 
And perish’d in the foremost rank 
With joy but not in chains to pine : 
His spirit withered with their clank, 

I saw it silently decline — 

And so perchance in sooth did mine ; 

But yet I forced it on to cheer 
Those relics of a home so dear. 

. 

He was a hunter of the hills, 

Had followed there the deer and wolf ; 
To him this dungeon was a gulf, 

And fettered feet the worst of ills. 

* 

VI. 

Lake Leman lies by Chillon’s walls : 

A thousand feet in depth below 
Its massy waters meet and flow ; 

Thus much the fathom-line was sent 
From Chillon’s snow-white battlement, (3) 
Which round about the wave enthralls : 
A double dungeon wall and wave 
Have made — and like a living grave. 


POEMS. 


11 




. 


Below the surface of the lake 
The dark vault lies wherein we lay, 

We heard it ripple night and day ; 

Sounding o’er our heads it knock’d; 

And I have felt the winter’s spray 

Wash through the bars when winds were high 

And wanton in the happy sky ; 

And then the very rock hath rock’d, 

And I have felt it shake, unshock’d. 

Because I could have smil’d to see 
The death that would have set me free. 




119 




vir. 


I said my nearer brother pined, 

I said his mighty heart declined, 

He loath’d and put away his food ; 

It was not that ’twas coarse and rude, 
For we were used to hunter’s fare, 

And for the like had little care : 

The milk drawn from the mountain goat 
Was changed for water from the moat. 
Our bread was such as captive’s tears 
Have moisten’d many a thousand years, 




POEMS. 


Since man first pent his fellow men 
Like brutes within an iron den : 

But what were these to us or him ? 

These wasted not his heart or limb ; 

'My brother’s soul was of the mould 
Which in a palace had grown cold, 

Had his free breathing been denied 
The range of the steep mountain’s side : 
But why delay the truth ? — he died. 

I saw, and could not hold his head, 

Nor reach his dying hand — nor dead, 
Though hard I strove, but strove in vain, 
To rend and gnash my bonds in twain. 
He died — and they unlocked his chain, 
And scoop’d for him a shallow grave 
Even from the cold earth of our cave. 

I begg’d them, as a boon, to lay 
His corse in dust whereon the day 
Might shine — it was a foolish thought, 
But then within my brain it wrought, 
That even in death his freeborn breast 
In such a dungeon could not rest. 


POEMS. 


\ 




I might have spared my idle prayer — 
They coldly laugh’d — and laid him there 
The flat and turfless earth above 
The being we so much did love ; 

His empty chain above it leant, 

Such murder’s fitting monument! 


VIII. 

But he, the favourite and the flower, 
Most cherish’d since his natal hour, 
His mother’s image in fair face, 

The infant love of all his race, 

His martyred father’s dearest thought, 
My latest care, for whom I sought 
To hoard my life, that his might be 
Less wretched now, and one day free ; 
He, too, who yet had held untired 
A spirit natural or inspired — 

He, too was struck, and day by day 
Was withered on the stalk away. 

Oh God! it is a fearful thing 
To see the human soul take wing 


POEMS. 


In any shape, in any mood : — 

I’ve seen it rushing forth in blood, 

I’ve seen it on the breaking ocean 
Strive with a swoln convulsive motion, 
I’ve seen the sick and ghastly bed 
Of Sin delirious with its dread : 

But these were horrors — this was woe 
Unmix’d with such — but sure and slow : 
He faded, and so calm and meek, 

So softly worn, so sweetly weak, 

So tearless, yet so tender — kind, 

And grieved for those he left behind; 
With all the while a cheek whose bloom 
Was as a mockery of the tomb, 

Whose tints as gently sunk away 
As a departing rainbow’s ray — " 

An eye of most transparent light, 

That almost made the dungeon bright. 

And not a word of murmur — not 

( 1 

A groan o’er his untimely lot, — 

A little talk of better days, 

A little hope my own to raise. 


POEMS. 


For I was sunk in silence — lost 
In this last loss, of all the most ; 

And then the sighs he would suppress 
Of fainting nature’s feebleness, 

More slowly drawn, grew' less and less : 

I listened, but I could not hear — 

I call’d, for I was wild with fear ; 

I knew ’twas hopeless, but my dread 
Would not be thus admonished ; 

I called, and thought I heard a sound — 

I burst my chain with one strong bound, 
And rush’d to him : — I found him not, 

I only stirr’d in this black spot, 

/ only lived—/ only drew 
The accursed breath of dungeon-dew ; 
The last — the sole — the dearest link 
Between me and the eternal brink, 

Which bound me to my failing race, 

Was broken in this fatal place. 

One on the earth, and one beneath-— 

My brothers — both had ceased to breathe : 


POEMS. 


I took that hand which lay so still, 

Alas ! my own was fulhas chill ; 

I had not strength to stir, or strive, 

But felt that I was still alive — 

A frantic feeling, when we know 
That what we love shall ne’er be so. 

I know not why 
I could not die, 

I had no earthly hope — but faith, 

And that forbade a selfish death. 

IX. 

What next befell me then and there 
I know not well — I never knew — 

First came the loss of light and air, 

And then of darkness too : 

I had no thought, no feeling — none — < 
Among the stones I stood a stone. 

And was, scarce conscious what I wist, 
As shrubless crags within the mist ; 

For all was blank, and bleak, and grey,. 
It was not night— it was not day, 

It was not even the dungeon-light. 

So hateful to my heavy sight, 


POEMS. 


\ 

Bat vacancy absorbing space, 

And fixedness — without a place ; 

There were no stars — no earth — no time— 
No check— no change— no good — no crime 
But silence, and a stirless breath 
Which neither was of life nor death ; 

A sea of stagnant idleness, 

Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless ! 

X 

A light broke in upon my brain, — 

It was the carol of a bird ; 

It ceased, and then it came again, 

The sweetest song ear ever heard,. 

And mihe was thankful till my eyes 
Ran over with the glad surprise, 

And they that mement could not see 
I was the mate of misery ; 

But then by dull degrees came back 
My senses to their wonted track, 

I saw the dungeon walls and floor 

Close slowly round me as befoJe, 

F 


POEMS. 


IS 

I saw the glimmer of the sun 
Creeping as it before had done, 

But through the crevice where it came 
That bird was perch’d, as fond and tame. 
And tamer than upon the tree ; 

A Jovely bird, with azure wings, 

And song that said a thousand tilings. 

And seem’d to say them all for me ! 

I never saw its like before, 

I ne’er shall see its likeness more r 
It seem’d like me to want a mate, 

But w'as not half so desolate, , 

And it was come to love me when 
None lived to love 'me so again, 

And cheering from my dungeon’s bi ink, 
Had brought me back to feel and think. 

I know not if it late were free, 

Or broke its cage to perch on mine* 

But knowing well capfit itv. 

Sweet bird ! I eould not wish tor thine 
Or if it were, in winged guise, 

A visitant from Paradise j 


POEMS. 


, For- -Heaven forgive that thought ! the while 
Which made me both to weep and smile ; 

I sometimes deemed that it might be 
My brother's soul come down to me : 

But then at last away it lie*’, 

.And then ’twas mortal— well I knew, 

For he would never thus have flown, 

And left me twice so doubly lone,— 

Lone— as the corse within its shroud. 

Lone— as a solitaiy cloud, 

A single cloud on a sunny day, ^ 

While all the rest of heaven is clear, 

A frown upon the atmosphere, • 

That hath no business to appear 

When skies are blue, and earth is gay. 

XI. 

A kind of change came in my fate, 

My keepers grew compassionate, 

I know not what had made them so, 

They were inured to sights of woe, 

But. so it was .— -my broken chain 
With links unfasten’d did remain,. 


POEMS, 


20 


And it vvas liberty to stride 
Along my cell from side to side, 

And up and down, and then athwart, 
And tread it over every part ; 

And round the pillars one by one, 
Returning where my walk begun, 
Avoiding, only, as I trod, 

My brothers’ graves without a sod; 

For if 1 thought with heedless tread 
My step profaned their lowly bed, 

My breath came gaspingly and thick. 
And my crush’d heart fell blind and sick- 

xrr. 

I made a footing in the wall, 

It was not therefrom to escape, 

For I had buried one and all, 

Who loved me in a human shape ; 

And the whole earth would henceforth be 
A wider prison unto me : 

No child— -no sire— -no kin had I, 

No partner in my misery ; 


/ 


POEMS. 


c i*',. 


I thought of this, and I was glad, 

For thought of them had made me mad ; 
iSut I was curious to ascend 
To my barr’d windows, and to bend 
Once more, upon the mountains high, 

The cjuiet of a loving eye. 

XIII. 

I saw them — and they were the same, 
They were not changed like me in frame ; 
I saw their thousand ypars of snow 
On high — their wide long lake below, 

And the blue Rhone in fullest flow; 

I heard the torrents leap and gush 
O’er channeled rock and broken bush ; 

I saw the white-wall’d distant town, 

And whiter sails go skimming down; 

And then there was a little isle, 

Which in my very face did smile. 

The only one in view ; 

A small green isle, it seem’d no more, 
Scarce broader than my dungeon flow, 


32 ' 


fCEMS: 


But in it there were three tall trees., 

And o’er it blew the mountain breeze, 

And by it there were waters flowing, 

And on it there were young flowers growing, 
Of gentle breath and hue. 

The fish swam by the castle wall, 

And they seemed joyous each and all ; 

The eagle rode the rising blast, 

Methought he never flew so fast 
As then to me he seemed to fly, 

And then new tears came in my eye, 

And I felt troubled— and would fain 
I had not left my recent chain ; 

And when I did descend again, 

The darkness of my dim abode 
Fell on me as a heavy load ; 

It was as is a new-dug grave, 

Closing o’er one we sought to save, 

And yet my glance, too much oppre&tj, 

Had almost need of such a rgst. 


POEMS. 


XIV. 

It might be months, or years, or days, „ 

I kept no count-— I took no note, 

I had no hope my eyes to raise. 

And clear them of their dreary mote ; 
At last men came to set me free, 

I ask’d not why, and reck’d not where 
It was at length the same to me, 
Fettered or fetterless to be, 

I learn’d to love despair. 

And thus when they appear’d at last, 
And all my bonds aside were cast, 
These heavy walls to me had grown 
A hermitage-— and all my own ! 

And half I felt as they were come 
To tear me from a second home : 

With spiders I had friendship made, 
And watch’d them in their sullen trade, 
Had seen the mice by moonlight play, 
And why should I feel less than they ? 
We were all inmates of one place, 

And I, the monarch of each race* 


24 


POEMS. 


Had power to kill— yet, strange to tell 
In quiet we had leam’d to dwell — 

My very chains and I grew friends, 

So much a long communion tends 
To make us what we are : even I 
Regain’d my freedom with a sigh. 


SONNET. 


W 

*v 


y* 

Rousseau — Voltaire — our Gibbon-— and de Stael — 
Leman ! these names are worthy of thy shore, 
Thy shore of names like these, wertthou no more, 
Their memory thy remembrance would recal : 

To them thy tanks were lovely as to all, 

But they have made them lovelier, for the lore 
Of mighty minds doth hallow in the core 
Of human hearts the ruin of k wall 

Where dwelt the wise and wondrous ; but by iltee, 
How much more, Lake of Beauty ! do we feel, 

In sweetly gliding o’er thy crystal sea. 

The wild glow of that not ungentle zeal, 

Which of the heirs of immortality 

Is proud, and makes the breath of glory real ! 

F 2 


STANZAS TO — - 


I. 

' * “ 

Though the day of my destiny’s over* 

And the star of my fate hath declined. 

Thy soft heart refused to discover 
The faults which so tnany could find ; 
Though thy soul with my grief was acquair^d 
It shrunk not to share it with me, 

And the love which my spirit hath painted 
It never hath found but in thee. 

n. 

Then when nature around me is smilii g. 

The last smile which answers to mine, 

I do nothelieve it beguiling. 

Because it reminds me ©f thine : 


PQEM5. 

\ . 

.And when winds are at war with the occafc* 

As the breasts I believed in with me> 

If their billows excite an emotion, 

It is that they bear me from ihet. 

nr. 

/ 

Though the rock of my last hope is shiver’d, 

And its fragments are sunk in the wavfy 

Though I feel that my soul is deliver’d 
/ * . 

To pain — it shall not be its slave. 

There is many a pang to pursue me : 

They may crush, but they shall not content^- 

They may torture, but shall not subdue me— 

’Tis of thee that I think— not of them. 


IV. 

Though human, thou didst not deceive me, 
Though woman, thou didst not forsake 
Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me, 
Though slander’d, thou never could’st shaker- 
Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me, 
Though parted, it Was not to fly, 


28 


FOEMS. 


Though watchful, ’twas not to defame me, 

Nor, mute, that the world might belie. 

V. 

Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it, 

Nor the war of the many with one — 

If my soul was not fitted to prize it, 

’Twas folly not sooner to shun ; 

And if dearly that error hath cost me, 

And more than I once could foresee, 

I have found that, whatever it lost me, 

Jt could not deprive me of Ihee. 

VI. 

F rom the wreck of the past, which hath perish’d 
Thus much I at least may recal, 

It hath taught me that what I most cherish’d* 
Deserved to be dearest of all. 

Ih the desert a fountain is springing, 
vln the wide waste there still is a tree-, 

And a bird in the solitude singing, 

Which speaks to my spirit of ifrfc. 




V 


DARKNESS. 



s v H 

\ 

1 hab a dream, which was not all a dream. 

The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars 
Did wander darkling in the eternal space, 

Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth 
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air ; 

Mom came and went — and came and brought no day, 
And men forgot their passions in the dread 

g 

Of this their desolation ; and all hearts 

Were chill’d 'mto arselfish prayer for light : 

«* 

And they did live by watchfires— and the thrones, 

*The palaces of crowned kings— the huts. 

The habitations of all things which dwell, 

Were burnt for beacons ; cities were consumed, 


39 


POEMS. 


And men were gathered round their blazing homes 
To look once more into each other’s face ; 

Happy were those who dwelt within the eye, 

Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch : 

A fearful hope was all the world contain’d ; 

Forests were set on fire — but hour by hour 
They fell and faded — and the crackling trunks 
Extinguish’d with a crash-*-and all was black. 

The brows of men by the despairing light 
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits 
The flashes fell upon them ; some lay down 
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest 
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled ; 

And others hurried to and fro, and fed 
Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up 
With mad disquietude on the dull sky. 

The pall of a past world ; and then again 
With curses cast them down upon the dust, 

And gnash’d their teeth and howl’d : the wild birds ' 
shriek’d, 

And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, 

And flap their useless wings ; the wildest brutes 


i'OEM& 


Came lame and tremulous ; and vipers crawl’d 
And twined themselves among the multitude, 
Hissing but stingless— they were slain for food : 
And war, which for a moment was no more, 

Did glut himself again ;— a meal was bought 
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart 
Gorging himself in gloom : no love was left; 

All earth was but one thought— and that was death* 

Immediate and inglorious; and the pang 

Of famine fed upon all entrails— men 

Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh ; 

The meagre by the meagre were devoured, 

Even dogs assail’d their masters, all save one, 

And he was faithful to a corse, and kept 

The birds and beasts and famish’d men at bav, 

/ 

Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead 
Lured their lank jaws ; himself sought out no food, 
Iiut with a piteous and perpetual moan 
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand 
Which answered not with a caress— he died. 

The crowd was famish’d by degrees ; but two 
Of an enormous city did survive, 


32 


POEMS. 


And they were enemies ; they met beside 
The dying embers of an altar-place 
Where had been heap’d a mass of holy things 
For an unholy usage ; they raked up, 

And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands 

The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath 

Blew for a little life, and made a flame 

WTiich was a mockery ; then they lifted up 

Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld 

Each other’s aspects— saw, and shriek’d, and died--* 

Even of their mutual hideousness they died, 

Unknowing who he was upon whose brow 
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void, 

The populous and the powerful was a lump, 
§easonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless— * 

A lump of death — a chaos of hard clay. 

The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still* 

And nothing stirred within their silent depths ; 

Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea, 

And their masts fell down piecemeal ; as they dropp’d 
They slept on the abyss without a surge — 

The waves were dead ; the tides werein their grave, 


POEMS- 


33 




The moon tjpeir mistress had expiredhefore ; 
The winds were withered in the stagnant air, 
And the clouds perish’d ; Darkness had no need 
Of aid from them — She was the universe. 


-m 







■4 








CHURCHILL’S GRAVE, 


A FACT LITERALLY RENDERED. 





'1 stood beside the grave of him who blazed 
The comet of a season, and I saw 
The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed 
With not the less of sorrow and of awe 
On ‘that neglected turf and qaiet stone r 
With name no clearer than the names unknown n 
Which lay unread around it ; and I ask’d 
The Gardener of that ground, why it might be 
That for this plant strangers his memory task’d 
Through the thick deaths of half a century ; 

And &ushe answered— “ Well, I do not know 
“ Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrims so; 




POEMS. 


35 


u He died before my day of Sextonship, 
u And I had not the digging of this grave.’* 

And is this all' ? I thought, — and do we rip 
The veil of Immortality ? and crave 
I know not what of honour and of light 
Through unborn ages, to endure this blight ? 

So- soon and so successless ? As I said, 

The Architect of all on which we tread. 

For earth is but a tombstone, did essay 
To extricate remembrance from the clay, 

Whose minglings might confuse a Newton’s thought 
Were it not that all life must end in one, 

Of which we are but dreamers ; — as he caught 
As ’twere the twilight of a former Sun 
Thus spoke he, — “ I believe the man of whom 
“ You wot, who lies in this selected tomb, 

“ Was a most famous writer in hi day, 
u To pay him honour, — an$ myself whate’er 
“ Your honour pleases,”— then most pleased I shook. 
From out my pocket’s avaricious nook 
Some certain coins of silver, which as ’twerp 
Perforce I gave this man, though I could spare 


36 


POEMS. 


So much but inconveniently Ye smile, 

I see ye, ye profane ones ! all the while, 
Because my homely phrase the truth would tell 
You are the fools, not I— for I did dwell 
With a deep thought, and with a soften’d eye, 
On that Old Sexton’s natural homily* 

In which there was Obscurity and Fame. 

The Glory and the Nothing of a Name, 


THE DREAM 



i, ’Our life is twofold ; Sleep hath its own worlds 
'i A boundary between the things misnamed 
Death and existence : Sleep hath its own world 
!, And a wide realm of wild reality, 

And dreams in their developement have breath, 
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy ; 

1 They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts, 
1 They take a weight from off our waking toils, 
They do divide our being ; they become 
A portion of ourselves as of our time, 

And look like heralds of eternity ; 

They pass like spirits of the past,— they speak 
Like sybils of the future ; they have power— 
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain ; 




POEMS. 


They make us what we were not— what they will* 
And shake us with the vision that’s gone by. 

The dread of vanish’d shadows— Are they so ? 

Is not the past all shadow ? What are they ? 

Creations of the mind ?— The mind can make 

A \ 

Substance, and people planets of its own 
With beings brighter than have been, and give 
i breath to forms which can outlive all flesh. 

I vv mld recal a vision which 1 dream’d, 

Perch»nce in sleep— for in itself a thought, 

A slumbering thought, is capable of years, 

And curdles a long life into one hour. 

ii. 

I saw t^> beings in the hues of youth 
Standing Vpon a hill, a gentle hill, 

Green and o\mild declivity, the last 
As ’twere the cape of a long ridge of such, 

Save that there was no s<?a to lave its base, 

Put a most living landscape, and the wave 
Of woods and cornfields, and the abodes of men 

>. Scattered at iutervaI s> and wreathing smoke 


POEMS. 


\ 

Arising from such rustic roofs the hill 
VY as crown’d with a peculiar diadem 
Of trees, in circular array, so fix’d, 

Not by the sport of nature, but of man-; 

These two, a maiden and a youth, were tVre 
Gazing — the one on all that was heneath 
Fair as herself— -but the boy gazed on her : 

And both were young, and one was beautiful; 

And both were young— yet not alike in youth. 

As the sweet moon on the horizon’s verge - i — 

The maid was on the eve of womanhood ; 

Tiie boy had fewer summers, but his heart 
Had far outgrown his years, and to his. eye 
There was but one beloved face on earth, 

And that was shining on him ; he had look’d 
Upon it ill it could not pass away ; 

He had no breath, no being, but in her’s ^ £0 

She was I is voice ; he did not speak to her, 

But trembled on her words ; she was his sight, 

F or is e e follow’d her’s, and saw with her’s, 

Which- coloured all his objects : — he had ceased < 

! o.Uvj within himself; she was his life* 



POEMS. 


4 

• ' / t 

The ocean to the river of his thoughts*. 
tVhicii terminated all : upon a tone* 

A touch of her’s, his blood wo»dJ ebb and flow,. 
And his cheek chans -0 tempestuously — his heart 
Vnknowing- of its cause of agony 
But she in these fond feelings had no share : 

Her sighs were not for him ! to her he was 
Even as a brother — but no more ; r twas much, 

For brotherless she was, save in the name 

Her infant friendship had bestowed on him ; 

Herself the solitary scion left 

Of a time-honoured race. — It was a name 

Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not— and 

Time taught him a deep answer— when she loved 

Another ; even now she loved another, 

And on the summit of that hill she stood 
Looking afar if yet her lover’s steed 
Kept pace with her expectancy, and fletf . 

III. 

A change came o’er the spirit of my dream. 

There was an ancient mansion) and before 


FOEMS. 


Its walls there was a steed caparisoned : 

Within an antique Oratory stood 

The boy of whom I spake ; — he was alone, 

And pale, and pacing to and fro ; anon 
He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced 
Words which I could not guess of ; then he lean’d 
His bow’d head on his hands, and shook as ’twere 
With a convulsion — then arose again, 

And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear 
What he had written, but he shed no tears. 

And he did calm himself, and fix his brow 
Into a kind of quiet : as he paused. 

The Lady of his love re-entered there, 

She was serene and smiling then, and yet 
She knew she was by him beloved, — she knew, 

For quickly comes such knowledge, that his heart 
Was darken’d with her shadow, and she saw 
That he was wretched, but she saw not all. 

He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp 
He took her hand ; a moment o’er his face 
A tablet of unutterable thoughts 

Was traced, and then it faded, as it came ; 

G 


42 


POEMS. 




He dropped the hand he held, and with slow steps 
Retired, but not as bidding her adieu, 

For they did part with mutual smiles ; he pass’d 
From out the massy gate of that old Hall, 

And mounting on his steed he went his way ; 

And ne’er repassed that hoary threshold more. 

IV. 

A change came o’er the spirit of my dream. 

The Boy was sprung to manhood : in the wilds 
Of fiery climes he made himself a home, 

And his Soul drank their sunbeams ; he was girt 
With strange and dusky aspects ; he was not 
Himself like what he had been ; on the sea 
And on the shore he was a wanderer ; 

There was a mass of many images 
Crowded like waves upon me, but he was 
A part of all ; and in the last he lay 
Reposing from the noon- tide sultriness, 

Couched among fallen columns, in the shade 
Of ruin’d walls that had survived the names 
Of those who rear’d them ; by his sleeping side 


POEMS. 


43 


Stood f cameIs grazing, and some goodly steeds 

• '<* 

Were fasten’d near a fountain ; and a man 

Clad in a flowing gaib did watch the while, ISO 

While many of his tribe slumber’d around : < 

And they were canopied by the blue sky. 

So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful, 

That God alone was to be seen in Heaven. 

* 

A change came o’er the spirit of my dream, 

The lady of his love was wed with One 
Who did not love her better ; — in her home, 

A thousand leagues from his, — her native home, 

She dwelt, begirt with growing Infancy, 

Daughters and sons of Beauty,— but behold ! 130 

Upon her face there was the tint of grief, 

The settled shadow of an inward strife, 

And an unquiet drooping of the eye 

As if its lid were charged with unshed tears. 

What could her grief be ?— she had all she loved, 

And he who had so loved her, was not there 
To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish 


44 POEMS. 

Or ill-repress’d affliction, her pure thoughts. 

What could her grief be ? — she had loved him not, 

Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved, 140 

Nor could he be a part of that which prey’d 
Upon her mind — a spectre of the past. 

vr. 

A change came o’er the spirit of my dream. — 

The Wanderer was return’d. — I saw him stand 
Before an Altar — with a gentle bride ; 

Her face was fair, but was not that which made 

The Starlight of his Boyhood ; — as he stood 

Even at the altar, o’er his brow there came 

The selfsame aspect, and the quivering shock 

That in the antique Oratory shook 150 

His bosom in its solitude ; and then — 

As in that hour— a moment o’er his face 
The tablet of unutterable thoughts 
Was traced, — and then it faded as it came. 

And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke 
The fitting vows, but heard not his own words. 

And all things reel’d around him ; he could see 


POEMS. 


45 


Not that which was, nor that which should have been — 
Put the old mansion, and the accustom’d hall, 

And the remembered chambers, and the place, 160 
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade, 

All things pertaining to that place and hour, 

And her who was his destiny, came back 

And thrust themselves between him and the light : 

What business had they there at such a time ? 

VII. 

A Change came o’er the spirit of my dream. 

The lady of his love : — Oh ! she was changed 

As by the sickness of the soul ; her mind 

Had wmndered from its dwelling, and her eyes 

They had not their own lustre, but the lock 170 

Which is not of the earth ; she was become 

The queen of a fantastic realm; her droughts 

Were combinations of disjointed things ; 

And forms impalpable and unperceived 
Of others’ sight familiar were to her’s. 

And this the world calls phrenzy ; but the wise 
Have a far deeper madness, and the glance 


X • , , jBL- 

<0 

- i s , x 

, v 

46 POEMS. 


Of melancholy is a fearful gift ; 

What is it but the telescope of truth ? 

Which strips the distance of its phantasies, 180 

And brings life near in utter nakedness, 

Making the cold reality too real ! 

VIII. 

A change came o’er the spirit of my dream. — 

The Wanderer was alone as heretofore. 

The beings which surrounded him were gone, 

Or were at war with him ; he was a mark 

For blight and desolation, compass’d round 

With Hatred and Contention ; Pain was mix’d 

In all which was served up to him, until 

Like to the Pontic monarch of old days, 190 

He fed on poisons, and they had no power, 

But were a kind of nutriment ; he lived 
Through that which had been death to many men, 

And made him friends of mountains ; with the stars 
And the quick Spirit of the Universe 
He held his dialogues ; and they did teach 
To him the magic of their mysteries;. 


-V * ' . 1 ' 

f. . 

POEMS. 

To him the book of Night was opened wide, 

And voices from the deep abyss reveal’d 
A marvel and a secret— Be it so. 

IX. 

My dream was past ; it had no farther change. 

It was of a strange order, that the doom 

Of these two creatures should be thus traced out 

' 

Almost like a reality — the one 
To end in madness — both in misery. 

• t •rH 

> \> 


200 


205 


THE INCANTATION. 


(The following Poem wag a Chorus in an unfinished 
Witch Drama, which was begun some years ago.) 


. s ' , l" 

When the moon is on the wave, 

And the glow-w'orm in the grass, 

And the meteor on the grave, 

And the wisp on the morass : 

When the falling stars are shooting. 

And the answered owls are hooting, 

And the silent leaves are still 
In the shadow of the hill, 

Shall my soul be upon thine, 

With a power and with a sign- 


POEMS, 


II. 

Though thy slumber may be deep, 

Yet thy spirit shall not sleep, 

There are shades which will not vanish, 
There are thoughts thou canst not banish 4 
By a power to thee unknown, 

Thou canst never be alone ; 

Thou art wrapt as with a shroud, 

Thou art gathered in a cloud ; 

And for ever shalt thou dwell 
In the spirit of this spell. 

III. . 

Though thou seest me not pass by, 

Thou shalt feel me with thine eye 
As a thing that, though unseen. 

Must be near thee, and hath been 
And when in that secret dread 
Thou hast turn’d around thy head, 

Thou shalt marvel I am not 
As thy shadow on the spot, 

And the power which thou dost feel 
Shall be what thou must conceal. 

G 2 


POEMS, 


IV, 

And a magic voice and verse 
Hath baptized thee with a curse ; 

And a spirit of the air 
Hath begirt thee with a snare ; 

In the wind there is a voice 
Shall forbid thee to rejoice ; 

And to thee shall Night deny 
All the quiet of her sky *, 

And the day shall have a sun, 

Which shall make thee wish it done. 

V. 

From thy false tears I did distil 
An essence which hath strength to kill:, 
From thy own heart I then did wring 
The black blood in its blackest spring ; 

F rom thy own smile I snatched the snake 
For there it coil’d as in a brake ; 

F rom thy own lip 1 drew the charm 
Which gave all these their chiefest harm ; 
In proving every poison known, 

.1 found the strongest was thine own. 


POEMS. 


VI. 

1 , 

By thy cold breast and serpent smile, 

By thy unfathom’d gulfs of guile, 

By that most seeming virtuous eye, 

By thy shut soul’s hypocrisy ; 

By the perfection of thine art 

Which pass’d for human thine own heart ; 

By thy delight in other’s pain, 

And by thy brotherhood of Cain, 

I call upon thee ! and compel 
Thyself to be thy proper Hell ! 

VII. 

And on thy head I pour the vial 
Which doth devote thee to this trial j 
Nor to slumber, nor to die, 

Shall be in thy destiny ; 

Though thy death shall still seem near 
To thy wish, but as a fear ; 

Lo ! the spell now works around thee, 

' 

And the clankless chain hath bound thee ; 
O’er thy heart and brain together 
Hath the word been pass’d— new wither 


PROMETHEUS. 


i. 

Titan ! to whose immortal eyes 
The sufferings of mortality. 

Seen in their sad reality, 

Were not as things that gods despise 
What was thy pity’s recompense ? 

A silent suffering, and intense ; 

The rock, the vulture, and the chain. 
All that the proud can feel of pain, 
The agony they do not show, 

The suffocating sense of wee, 

Which speaks but in its loneliness, 
And then is jealous lest the sky 
Shoud have a listener, nor will sigh. 

* Until its voice is echoless. 


rOEMS. 


II. 

Titan ! to thee the strife was given 
Between the suffering and the will, 
Which torture where they cannot kill ; 
And the inexorable Heaven 
And the deaf tyranny of Fate, 

The ruling principle of Hate, 

Which for its pleasure doth create 
The things it may annihilate, 

Refused thee even the boon to die : 

The wretched gift eternity 
Was thine — and thou hast borne it well. 
All that the Thunderer wrung from thee, 
Was but the menace which flung back 
On him the torments of thy rack ; 

The fate thou didst so well foresee 
But would not to appease him tell ; 

And in thy Silence was his Sentence, 

And in his Soul a vain repentance. 

And evil dread so ill dissembled 
That in his hand the lightnings trembled. 


POEMS. 

\rr» ■ : 

V 

lit ' ' 

Thy Godlike crime was to be kind, 

To render with thy precepts less 
The -sum of human wretchedness, 

And strengthen Man with his own mind ; 

But baffled as thou wert from high, 

Still in thy patient energy, 

In the endurance and repulse 
Of thine impenetrable Spirit, 

/ 

Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse 
A mighty lesson we inherit ; 

Thou art a symbol and a sign 
To Mortals of their fate and force ; 

Like thee, Man is in part divine, 

A troubled stream from a pure source ; 

And Man in portions can foresee 
His own funereal destiny ; 

His wretchedness, and his resistance, 

And his sad unallied existence; 

To which his Spirit may oppose 
Itself — an equal to all woes, 



POEMS. 


And a firm will, and a deep sense, 
Which even in torture can descty 
Its own concentered recompense, 
Triumphant where it dar*-s defy, 
knd making Death a Victory. 












NOTES. 


r 










\ 


* 







• / 


\ 














/ 














t 



* 


N 
























» 


/ 




% 
















I 









- / 

















I 



By Bonnivard ! — may none those marks efface. 

Franpois de Bonnivard, fils de Louis de Bonnivard, orJr 
ginaire de Se} ssel & Seigneur de Lunes, naquit en 1496 t 
il fit ses etudes a Turin : en 1510 Jean Aime de Bonni- 
vard, son oncle, lui resigna ie Prieure de St. Victor, 
qui aboutissoit aux murs de Geneve, & qui formait un 
benefice considerable. 

Ce grand homme (Bonnivard merite ce titre par la force 
de son amc, la droiture de son coeur, la noblesse de ses 
intentions, la sagesse de ses conseils, le courage dc ses 
demarches, I’etendue de ces conn&issances & la vivacitc 
de son esprit), ce grand homme, qui excitera l’admira- 
tion de tous ceux qu’une vertu hero'ique peut encore 
wnouvoir, inspirera encore la plus vive reconnaissance 


60 


NOTES. 


dans les cocurs des Genevois qui aiment Geneve. Bonni- 
vard en fut toujours undes plus fermes appuis : pour as- 
' surer la liberte de notre Republique, il ne craignit pas de 
perdre souvent la sienne ; il oublia son repos ; il meprisa 
ses richesses ; il ne nf'gligea rien pour affermir le bonheur 
d’une patrie qu’il honora de son choix : des ce moment 
il la cherit comme le plus zele de ses citoyens ; il la 
servit avec l’intrepidite d’unheros, et il ecrivit son Histoire 
avec la naivete d’un philosophe, & la chaleur d’un 
patriote. 

Il dit dansle commencement de son histoire de Geneve, 
que des qu'il eut commence de lire l' histoire des nations , 
il se sentit entraine par son gout pour les Republiques , 
dont il epousa toujuurs les interets : c’est ce gout pour 
la hberle qui lui fit sans doute adopter Geneve pour sa 
patrie. 

Ronnivard, encore jeune, s’annonpa hautement comme 
le defenseur de Geneve contre le Due de Savoy e et 
l’Eveque. 

En 1519, Bonnivard devient le martyr de sa patrie : 
Le Due de Savoye etant entre dans Geneve avec cinq, 
cent tiommes, Bonnivard craint le ressentiment du Due ; 
il voulut se retirer a Fribourg pour en eviter les suites; 
mais il fut trahi par deux hommes qui l’accompaguoient, 
& conduit par ordre du Prince a Grolee, oil il resta pris- 
sonier pendant deux ans. Bonnivard etoit malheureux 
dans ses voy ages : comme ses malheurs n’avoient point 


Notes. 


61 


ralenti son zele pour Geneve, il etoit toujours un ennemi 
redoutable pour ceux qui la menafoient, & par conse- 
quent il devoit dire expose a leurs coups. II fut rencon- 
tre en 1530 sur le Jura par des voleurs, qui le depouil- 
lerent, & qui le mirent encore entre les mains du Due de 
Savoye : ce Prince le fit enferiner dans le Chateau de 
Chillon, ou il resta sans 6tre interroge jusques en 1536; 
il fut alors delivre par les Bernois, qui s’emparerent du 
Pays de Yaud. 

Bonnivard, en sortant de sa captivite, eut le plaisir de 
trouver Geneve libre & reformee ; la Republique s’em- 
pressa de lui temoigner sa reconnoissance et de le dedom- 
mager des maux qu’il avoit souflerts ; elle le ref ut Bour- 
geois de la ville au mois de Juin 1536 ; elle lui donna la 
maison habitee autrefois par le Vicaire-Geueral, et elle 
lui assigna une pension de 200 ecus d’or tant qu’il sejour- 
neroit a Geneve. Il fut admis dans le Couseil des Deux- 
Cent en 1537. 

Bonnivard n’a pas fini d’etre utile : apres avoir travaille 
a rendre Geneve libre, il reussit a la rendre tolerante. 
Bonnivard engagea le Conseil a accorder aux Ecclesias- 
tiques & aux paysans un terns suffisant pour examiner les 
propositions qu’on leur faisoit ; il reussit par sa douceur : 
on pr£che toujours le Christianisme avec succes quand on 
le preche avec chari te. 

Bonnivard fut savant ; ses manuscrits, qui sont dans la 
Bibliotheque publique, prouvent qu’il avoit bicn lu les 
auteurs classiques latins, & qu’il avoit approfondi la theo- 


62 


NOTES. 


logie & l’histcire. Cc grand homme aimoit les sciences, 
et il croyoit qu’elles pouvoient faire la gloire de Geneve ; 
aussi il ne negligea rien pour les fixer dans cette ville 
naissante ; en 1551 il donna sa bibiiotheque au public ; elle 
fut le commencement de notre bibliotheque publique ; & 
ces livres sont en partie les rares & belles editions du 
quiuzieme siecle qu’on voit dans notre collection. Enfin, 
pendant la m£me annee, ce bon pstriote institua la 
Republique son heritiere, a condition qu’elle employeroit 
tea biens a. entretenir le college dont ou projettoit la fon- 
dalion. 

11 paroit que Bonnivard inourut en 1570 ; mais on ne 
peut l’assurer, parcequ’il y a une lacune dans le Necro- 
logue depuis le rnois de Juiilet 1570 jusques en 1571. 
v ' f ' \ - 

# Note 2, page 5, line 3. 

In a single night. 

Ludovico Sforza, and others. — The same is asserted of 
Marie Antoinette’s, the wife of Louis XVI. though not in 
quite so short a period. Grief is said to have the same 
effect : to such, and not to tear, this change in her's was 
to be attributed. 

) 

Note 3, pc ge 10, line 13. 

From ChiUon, s snow-white battlement. 

The Chateau de C lillon is situated between Clarena 
and Vilieneuve, which last is at one extremity of the 
Lake of Geneva. On its left are the entrances of the 


NOTES. 


63 


, 

III / 

Rhone, and opposite are the Heights of Melleirie and the 
range of Alps above Boveret and St. Gingo. 

Near it, on a hill behind, is a torrent ; below it, wash- 
ing its walls, the lake has been fathomed to the depth of 
800 feet (French measure) ; within it are a range of dun- 
geons, in which the early reformers, and subsequently 
prisoners of state, were confined. Across one of the 
vaults is a beam black with age, on which we were in- 
formed that the condemned were formerly executed, in 
the cells are seven pillars, or rather, eight, one being 
half merged in the wall ; in some of these are rings 
■ for the fetters and the fettered : in the pavement the 

! steps of Bonnivard have left their traces — he was confin- 
ed here several years. 

It is by this castle that Rousseau has fixed the cataslio- 

I phe of his Heloise, m the rescue of one of her children by 
Julie from the water ; the shock of which, and the illness 
produced by the immersion, is the cause ofher death. 

The chateau is large and seen along the lake for a 
great distance. — The walls are white. 

Note 4, page 21, line 16. 

And then there was a little isle. 

Between the entrances of the Rhone and Villeneuve, 
not far fromChillon, is a very small island ; the only one 
i 1 could perceive, in my voyage round and over the lake, 
within its circumference. — It contains a few trees, (I 


64 


POEMS. 


think not above three,) and from its singleness and diminu* 
tive size has a peculiar effect upon the view. 

When the foregoing poem was composed I was not 
sufficiently aware of the history of Bonnivard, or I should 
have endeavoured to dignify the subject by an attempt to 
celebrate his courage and his virtues. Some account of his 
life will be found in a note appended to the “ Sonnet on 
Chillon,” with which I have been furnished by the kind- 
ness of a citizen of that republic which is still proud of the 
memory of a man worthy of the best' age of ancient free- 
dom. 

; 

Note 5, page 25, line 2. 

Leman ! these names are worthy of thy shore. 

Geneva, Ferney, Copet, Lausanne. 

Note 6, page 49, line 13. 

Like to the Pontic monarch of old days. 

Mithridates of Pontus. 


EDINBURGH AND QUARTERLY 

REVIEWS, 

Published by Thomas Kirk and Thomas R. Merc tin, 
NO. 19 WALL-STREET, 

Between the Union and Manhattan Banks, 

Price to Subscribers, one dollar twenty- jive cents each 
number. 

N. B. Subscribers may commence with any volume 
of either Review. 


The re-publication of the Edinburgh and Quarter- 
ly Reviews in this country, having received the de- 
cided approbation of many of our most literary and 
scientific citizens, and the countenance of the public 
at large, the Subscribers were induced to purchase 
from the late Proprietors their interests in those Works, 
at a price probably greater than has ever been given 
in a similar case in this country. 

The [ire-eminent merit of those Reviews has been 

long and fully established ; as organs of sound criticism, 
A 


2 


as repositories of literary reference and scientific in- 
formation, they are unrivalled. The fact, that more 
than thirty thousand copies of these works are issued 
quarterly from the British press — that they are sought af- 
ter and read, not only in Great Britain, but in every 
court and nation in the European continent, would su- i 
persede the necessity of any recommendation. But to 
show the high estimation in which these publications 
are held by eminent literary characters in our own 
country, — the publishers beg leave to subjoin the fol- 
lowing, from among many similar commendations, 
which they have received, in addition to some others 
which were obtained by the former Proprietor. 

Flattered* by the patronage of such names, the Sub- 
scribers look with confidence to the guardians of lite* 
rary enterprise, and the friends of extended informa- 
tion, for a countenance and support which will not 
only indemnify them for their advances, but remune- 
rate their labours. No effort shall be withheld, no ex- 
penses spared, to merit the encouragement which they 
solicit ; and they will ever consider themselves bound* 


3 


bv the obligations of honour and of patriotism, to re* 
deem *hi« pledge, and to justify the public confidence 
and expectation. 

THOMAS “KIRK, 

THOMAS R. MERCEIN. 


Salem, (Massachusetts) Nov. 11, 1816. 

Gentlemen, 

I have the pleasure to acknowledge 
the receipt of your letter of the 2d instant. If any 
thing I could say would increase the circulation of 
the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, my testimony 
would be very cheerfully given in their favour. They 
are, however, so well known in the United States, and 
their character, critical, literary, and scientific, is so 
well established, that commendation seems almost use- 
less. They have hitherto made their way to a very 
general patronage by their intrinsic excellence in al- 
most every department of knowledge; and if they 
continue to exhibit the same spirit of research and the 


4 


same variety of talent, we may all say, in the language 
of Doctor Johnson, it will be vain to blame, and use- 
less to praise them. 

I am, very respectfully, 

Your most obedient servant, 

JOSEPH STORY. 

To Messrs. T. Kirk ^ T. R. Mercein. 


Washington, JS'ov. 9, 1816. 


Gentlemen, 

The only hesitation which I feel in re- 
plying to your letter of the 6th of this month, is, that 
commendation of the Edinburgh Review, at any 
hands, would seem superfluous. The more it is read 
the better. Besides the useful and various matter 
which enrich its pages, so often, too, assuming an 
elementary cast, there is scarcely a number but brings 
with it the gratifications of classic and beautiful writing. 
If its disquisitions sometimes slide into unkindness to 
America, it is not often, and it comes to us, upon the 


5 


whole, even upon this ground, with a great preponde- 
rance of redeeming merit. Readers of taste open its 
numbers with avidity. In science it is instructive, in 
morals pure, in the Belles Lettres delightful, and in po- 
litics we frequently see it pleading with eloquence and 
spirit the just rights of mankind. I, for one, most 
heartily wish it a wide circulation in our country. It 
cannot fail to help the cause of literature and genius. 

I am, respectfully, 

Your obedient servant, 

RICHARD RUSH. 

To Messrs. T. Kirk T. R. Merctin. 



Princeton , (N. J.) Nov. 27th , IS 16. 

Gentlemen, 

■ 

After the numerous attestations to the I 
pre-eminent merits of the Edinburgh and Quarterly 




Reviews, which have been recerilly laid before the 
public, I was hardly prepared to expect that any tiling 
of this kind could be thought necessary. But if there 


a 2 


G 


be any portion of the reading community of our 
country, who are yet to be informed of the character 
of these admirable literary Journals, it is certainly 
proper to make another effort to give them the in- 
formation. In some of the opinions, indeed, which 
these works contain, 1 can by no means concur ; nor 
can I view all of them as innocent. Still it is impos- 
sible not to respect and admire the learning, the pro- 
found and extensive views, the acute discrimination, 
and the powerful eloquence which they exhibit. For 
their striking assemblage of these qualities, I know of 
no works, of this class, cither in former or present 
time, which can be advantageously compared with 
them. 

I am, Gentleman, very respectfully, 

Your obedient servant, 

SAMUEL MILLER, 

Tc Messrs. T. Kirk <£• T. R. Merctin, 


7 ' 


Gentlemen, 


New- York, Dee. 3, 18 li. 


The reputation of the Edinburgh and 
Quarterly Reviews, for literature, science, and criti- 
cism, are so well and justly established, as to render 
commendation from any quarter superfluous. That 
you may succeed in your laudable undertaking is my 
earnest wish. 

Your’s, &e. 

JOHN S. ROMEY N. 

To Messrs. T. Kirk T. R. Mercein. 


New- York, 14th JYov 1816. 

Gentlemen, 

I shall be happy if any opinion of mine, 
as to the merits and utility of the Quarterly and Edin- 
burgh Reviews, can be of service to you. 

It seems to me, that the commencement of these 
publications, will form a new’ and brilliant era in the 
history of literature ; not only as they are distinguished 


8 


\ 


from every thing of the same nature which preceded 
them in point of literary merit, but as it introduced a 
new and happy mode of diffusing scientific information. 

I consider these Journals as invaluable to a great ma- 
ny people in this country who, like myself, cannot 
have access to the books to which they introduce us, 
and who have not much leisure for reading on sub- 
jects unconnected with our professional pursuits. 
Very often indeed, we le^rn from them but little of 
the writers which they profess to review ; but they 
afford us information as to the state and transactions of 
the republic of letters, which we on this side of the 
Atlantic could not gather from any other source. They 
give us a knowledge of the people, religion, morals, 
manners, politics, and literature of F.irbpe, and of the 
arts and sciences, and of the improvements which are 
daily making on them, which we should be in a great 
measure without, were it not for these works. 

For my own part, I feel so much indebted to these 
Reviewers, that I can very readily forgive mein the in- 
justice and illiberality with which they sometimes treat 


9 


©ur country and countrymen. We should look on 
these parts of their work with the same compassion 
or contempt that we regard the acts of other men, 
who have the misfortune to be ignorant, or who are so 
unhappy as to be under the influence of envy, jea- 
lousy, or pride. — We shall by-and by, it is to be hoped, 
have on this side the Atlantic, reviews conducted 
with some portion of the ability which distinguishes 
the Quarterly and Edinburgh, and then Europeans 
will be better acquainted with us. 

1 am, Gentlemen, very respectfully, 

Your obedient humble servant, 


CADWALLADER D. GOLDEN. 
To Messrs. T. Kirk T. R. Mercein . 


JVciv-York , JY ov. 2 4th, 1816. 


Gentlemen, 

The reputation which the Edinburgh 
and Quarterly Reviews have acquired in every part of 
the enlightened world, is already established upon so 


10 


firm a basis, that any commendation from the friends of 
your undertaking is, in my opinion, altogether super- 
fluous. 

I have taken those works from the commencement 
of their publication, and must add, that I know of 
none of that nature, which convey equal information* 
or are executed in a style that is more pure and ele- 
gant. 

They have already done much, and are calculated 
still further to improve and extend the literary taste of 
our country: as such, I cheerfully concur in the re- 
commendations you solicit. 

With the best wishes for your success, 

I am, Gentlemen, 

Your friend, and humble servant, 

DAVID HOSACK. 

To Messrs. T. Kirk T. R. Mercein. 

Wilmington, (Del.) Nov. 18 th, 1816. 

Gentlemen, 

Professional avocations and public du- 
ties have hitherto prevented an earlier reply to your 


11 


favour of the 2d inst requesting my opinion of the 
tl merit and utility” of the Edinburgh and Quarterly 
Reviews, which you are republishing at New-York. 

They are both works of so much celebrity, and 
such established reputation, in Europe and in the 
United States, that t flatter myself you will meet with 
ample encouragement in your laudable, though expen- 
sive undertaking. 

With the former publication I am conversant : with 
the latter but slightly acquainted. My observations 
will, therefore, be confined to the first ; and you shall 
have my sentiments without the least reserve. 

The Edinburgh Review, instituted, not many years 
since, by a society of gentlemen, of superior talents in 
their respective professions, from its very commence- 
ment attracted considerable notice for the ability dis- 
played in the discussion of the various subjects it 
embraces, and the general soundness of the princi- 
ples it advocated and supported. The vigorous off- 
spring of strong and comprehensive, minds, highly cul- 
tivated, and richly stored with knowledge, its hist tea- 


12 


tures indicated its origin, and marked its character and 
claim to distinction. 

Perhaps, no periodical work has ever been crown- 
ed with equal success, for none, within my recollec- 
tion, has ranked so deservedly high in public estima- 
tion. 

In this excellent journal, the scholar, the philoso- 
pher, and the statesman, may all find lessons of instruc- 
tion ; and neither of them should be without a copy. 
To professional men, and to those in the common 
walks of life, it affords a constant fund of rational enter- 
tainment, and valuable information. To the fair sex 
it is a precious acquisition at this enlightened period, 
when they have been justly admitted to share in the 
common stock of science and literature. 

The volumes already published, furnish a library of 
modern knowledge and late improvements in the arts, 
united with ancient learning and classical lore ) they 
almost complete the circle of the sciences. 

The work is not perhaps, strictly-speaking, a Review, 
at least not exclusively; because the authors frequently 


13 


select publications merely as introductions to their 
own sentiments on the same subjects. They do not 
always comment on the text, but they make it the 
theme of an original essay ; in short, you find all that 
is valuable relative to the topics discussed. It is the 
key that unlocks the vast and various stores of literary 
and scientific treasure, they have amassed by toiling in 
the inexhaustible mines of knowledge. 

I have been surprised that an association combin- 
ing so much genius and talents, should remain so long 
united *, but the constellation continues to shine with 
all its original lustre. 

In general, the work is conducted with impartiality, 
but I cannot approve of some severe strictures on 
American productions, character and talents. 

In England it is but too common to undervalue and 
depreciate the American character, literary as well as 
political. They forget that our country has produced 
a warrior, Washington, the simplicity of whose style, 
and the purity of whose language, though frequently 

written in the tent, or the field, “ Currente calamo ,” 
B 


14 


has excited universal admiration. They no longer re- 
collect the eloquent tribute paid by Chatham to the 
talents of that Congress which declared independence. 
Though Godfrey has invented the quadrant, Kitten- • 
house exhibited the motions of the heavenly bodies, 
and Franklin snatched the lightning from the clouds, 
they continue to decry American genius ; when West 
is presiding over their Royal Academy-rand Murray 
teaching them their own language. 

Speaking with perfect candour, I am reluctantly 
compelled to say, that in some instances, the writers 
of the Edinburgh Review breathe too much of this 
narrow contracted and illiberal spirit toward this coun- 
try ; but they are rare — the purest bullion is not with- 
out alloy. 

Permit me to add, that elated perhaps, by unrivalled 
success, they occasionally assume more than is strictly 
admissible in the republic of letters. 

A difference of style also, is observable in the various 
essays ; they are not all of equal merit, nor is it to be 
expected. 


15 


Taking it altogether, the t/votk is admirable. It is, 
indeed, a literary prodigy. The plan and design is 
original, and well suited to the character and taste of 
the present age, when learning has been more generally 
diffused amongst all classes of people. 

The Spectator, Mirror, and other periodical publica- 
tions of that class, did not aspire to the higher order of 
knowledge. But this celebrated work embraces, with- 
in its capacious grasp, every art and science : It strews 
with flowers the most intricate and thorny paths of 
learning, and renders the more abstruse subjects fami- 
liar to common minds. 

With every wish for a wide and extensive circula- 
tion of this real encyclopedia of knowledge, I remain 
Your very obliged servant, 

C. A. RODNEY. 

To Messrs. T. Kirk T. R. Mercein. 


The character of the Edinburgh and Quarterly Re 
views is drawn with so much felicity in the advertise 


16 


mp-nt of the publisher, as to leave little to others but 
the addition of their signatures. Unqualified approba- 
tion of every thing in works of such multifarious criti- 
cism is not to be expected, and cannot fairly be imput- 
ed to any general recommendation. On religious sub- 
jects they both contain articles from which the Chris- 
tian reader cannot withhold his reprehension. Yet 
their substantial merits ; their vigour of talent ; their 
vast information ; their capacious views ; their discrimi- 
nating taste ; their splendour of imagination; their vvit r 
their eloquence, their argument, elevate them to the 
first rank among Literary Journals, and render them 
worthy of a place in the library and the studies of 
every sound scholar. 

J. M. MASON. 

New- York, 25ih,Aug. 1812. 


The merits of the Reviews mentioned in the above 
statement, are, in my opinion, pre-eminently great, sis 


17 


literary works, and the American publishers are enti- 
tled to the public patronage. 

DE WITT CLINTON. 

New- York, 18 Ih August, 1812. 

The Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews being supe- 
rior to all other works of the same kind, I earnestly 
hope that the proprietors may be encouraged to con- 
tinue their republication in this country. 

RUFUS KING. 

August, 1812. 


I cordially concur in the same recommendation of 
the republication of the Edinburgh and Quarterly Re- 
views, and in the same opinion of their merits. 

JAMES KENT. 


I sincerely concur in the wish that the American 

publisher of the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews 
B 2 


18 


may be encouraged to continue the republication of 
them. 

J. H. HOBART. 


New- York, August 25th, 1812. 

The circulation which the Edinburgh and Quarter- 
ly Reviews have already had in this country, and the 
unusual public reputation which they have acquired, 
both in Europe and America, leave no reasonable 
doubt of your obtaining a patronage sufficient not only 
to indemnify you against loss from so expensive an 
undertaking, but to ensure you a liberal compensation 
for the labour and attention which must necessarily be 
bestowed on it. This cannot fail of being the case if 
the encouragement received be in any degree propor- 
tionate to the extraordinary merit of the works which 
you propose to reprint. Permit me to tender you my 
best wishes for your success in this useful enterprise. 

I am, very respectfully, Sir, 

Your most obedient servant, 

B. LIVINGSTON. 


19 


Both the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews deserve 
the encomiums given them. They contain interesting 
and instructive dissertations upon a variety of impor- 
tant subjects ; and from the collision of sentiment be- 
tween their different writers, they exercise the mind 
in habits of reflection, and lead to the formation of a 
correct judgment. I shall only add, that I consider 
their republication as a public benefit, and as entitled 
to the most extensive patronage. 

RICHARD H ARISON. 

New- York, 26lh August, 1812. 


The Edinburgh Review, now many years published, 
I have read with great pleasure, and I hope not with- 
out some improvement. It has worked its own way 
from the horizon to the zenith, and its ascent has left 
a path sufficiently luminous to show how greatly it 
has distanced all its competitors. By interesting and 
enlightening the four quarters of the globe, wherever 
British prowess, or British enterprise has introduced its 


20 


native language ; “ in regions where the Roman Eagles 
never flew,” its celebrity is established; and the 
elaboration of science, depth of research, poignancy 
of satire, acumen of wit, and raciness of pleasantry 
with which it abounds, no longer stand in need of an 
eulogist; but notwithstanding this, it may not be su- 
perfluous to remark, that the intelligence and liberality 
it has manifested in its recent discussions of this coun- 
try, at once peculiarly recommend and adapt it for the 
perusal of American readers. 

Of the Quarterly Review, I can speak with less con- 
fidence ; its date is more recent, and owing to my long 
and frequent absences from home, I have received it 
irregularly, and looked into few of its numbers; but 
from the high standing and literary character of the 
gentlemen who were announced as its patrons and con- 
tributors, I doubt not it merits very much of com- 
mendation, both for its erudition, and its correctness. 


J. LLOYD. 



21 


Boston , October 14, 1812. 

The editor who has undertaken the republication of 
the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews having requested 
us to express our opinions as to the character and 
utility of those journals ; and having suggested that 
such an expression might in some measure promote 
the circulation of them, we are unwilling to refuse to 
gratify so reasonable a request. In any other view it 
might seem both superfluous and arrogant in us to give 
our testimony in favour of the two best established 
Journals in the British Empire. We certainly think, 
not only that they are, but they that are esteemed 
among the most respectable literary and critical works 
which have appeared for many years in Great Britain, 
and so long as the present interruption to intercourse 
with that country shall continue, the republication of 
those Journals here will be uncommonly interesting to 
the republic of letters. 

JN. LOWELL, 

JOSIAH QUINCY, 

JOHN T. KIRKLAND. President , Har. College. 


22 


Sir — I n offering to the public such works as the Edia* 
burgh and Quarterly Reviews, recommendation and 
apology are alike unnecessary. These distinguished 
Journals have already passed the ordeal, and received 
the stamp of approbation. And whatever diversity of 
opinion may be entertained as to their distinctive me- 
rits, the information concentrated, and the talent evolv- 
ed in each, is such as to render the possession of both 
to the American scholar and statesman an object of 
the first importance. 

ELIPHALET ISOTT. 

The very great circulation of the Edinburgh and 
Quarterly Reviews in Europe, proves incontestibly 
their merit. Being conducted by very able men in 
every branch of literature, and being enriched by fre- 
quent contributions from persons not immediately en- 
gaged in the work, they offer to the American public 
the best information on all subjects of science, morals 
and politics. Theyappear to have been reprinted with 
great accuracy ; and I should think that the discon- 


23 


tinuance of the republication of them would be much 
to be regretted. I should hope, on the contrary, that 
the American publishers might meet with sufficient en- 
couragement to induce them to pursue their original 
plan of republishing the Edinburgh Review from its 
commencement. 

C. WILKES. 

December 1 6th, 1812. 

I very much approve the continuance of the repub* 
lications in this country of the Edinburgh and Quar- 
terly Reviews. The editors of both, but particularly 
of the former, have collected a great force of talent, 
information and industry to support them. They ex- 
hibit in the most satisfactory light the current of lite- 
rary exertions and employment in Europe, and tend, 
more than any other mode of public information that 
has yet been adopted, to keep America apprized of the 
progress of letters, and the improvements of science 
in Europe. 

W. RAWLE. 

Philadelphia , Sept. 8, 1812. 


24 


Being requested by the American publisher of the 
Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews to state my opinion 
concerning the enterprise in which he is engaged, I 
suggest with great readiness, that I believe it to be one 
of much public utility, and consider the character of 
excellence and importance which he has ascribed to 
those journals in his prospectus, as eminently just. 

ROBERT WALSH, Jun. 


*** Subscriptions will be received by the Publishers, in 
New-York, and 

Wells Lilly, Boston ; A. Seward, Utica; E. F. 
Backus, Albany; W. Essex &l Son, Lexington, 
(Ken.) Thomas Dobson, and E. Earle, Philadel- 
phia ; Coale & Maxwell, Baltimore ; Hezekjah 
Howe, New-Haven; Rousmaniere & Barber, New- 
port; D. Fenton, Trenton; W. E. Norman, Hud- 
son; W. T. Williams, Savannah; W. F. Gray, 
Fredericksburgh ; G. Sheldon & Co. Hartford; 
Fitzwhylsonn *Potter. Richmond ; John Mill, 
Charleston; and George Richards, Georgetown. 


MANFRED 







M A N F R E D, 


A 


DRAMATIC POEM. 


4 ‘ There are more things hi heaven'and earth, Horatio, 
' u Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’*. 


BY LORD BYRON. 


NEW-YO RK: 

?UB|-1SHED BY VAN WINKLE AND WtLEY, 

No. 3 Wall-street. 


.1817 









Vui? I 


DRAMATIS PERSONS. 


Manfred. 

Chamois Hunter. 
Abbot of St. Maurice; 
Manuel. 

Herman. 

Witch of the Alps. 
Arlaianes. 

Nemesis, 

The Destinies. 

Spirits, &c. 


The Scene of the Drama- is amongst the 
Higher Alps — partly in the Castle of Man- 
fred , and partly in the Mountains. 

r 





MANFRED 


ACT I. 

SCENE I. 

Manfred alone — Scene , a Gothic gallery — 2'itrte \ ? 
Midnight. 

Man. The lamp must be replenish’d, but even 
then 

It will not burn so long- as I must watch : 

My slumbers — if I slumber — are not sleep* 

But a continuance of enduring thought, 

Which then I can resist not : in my heart 
There is a vigil, and these eyes but close 
To look within ; and yet I live, and bear 
The aspect and the form of breathing men. 

But grief should be the instructor of the wise ; 
Sorrow is knowledge : they who know the mosfc 
Must mourn the deepest o’er the fatal truth, 

The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life. 
Philosophy and science, and the springs 
Of wonder, and the wisdom of the world, 

I have essayed, and in my mind there is 
A power to make these subject to itself — 

But they avail not : I have done men good. 


8 


MANFRED* 


ACT I, 


And I have met with good even among men — 
But this avail’d not : I have had my foes, 

And none have baffled, many fallen before me— 
But this avail’d not : — Good, or evil, life, 

Powers, passions, all 1 see in other beings, 

Have been to me as rain unto the sands, 

Since that all-nameless hour. I have no dread, 
And feel the curse to have no natural fear, 

Nor fluttering throb, that beats with hopes or 
wishes, 

Or lurking love of something on the earth. — 
Now to my task. — 

Mysterious Agency ! 

Ye spirits of the unbounded Universe! 

Whom I have sought in darkness and in light — 
Ye, who do compass earth about, and dwell 
In subtler essence — ye, to whom the tops 
Of mountains inaccessible are haunts, 

And earth’s and ocean’s caves familiar things— 

I call upon ye by the written charm 
Which gives me power upon you Rise ! ap- 
pear ! [A 'pause. 

They come not yet.— Now by the voice of him 
Who is the first among you — by this sign, 

Which makes you tremble — by the claims of him 
Whn is undying, — Rise ! appear!— —Appear 1 

[*/i pause* 

Cf it be so. — Spirits of earth and air, 

¥ e shall not thus elude me : by a power, 

Deeper than all yet urged, a tyrant-spell, 


SCENE I. 


MANFRED. 


9 


Which had its birth-place in a star condemn’d, 
The burning wreck of a demolish’d world, 

A wandering hell in the eternal space ; 

By the strong curse which is upon my soul, 

The thought which is within me and around me, 
I do compel ye to my will. — Appear ! 

[A star is seen at the darker end of the galle- 
ry ; it is stationary ; and a voice is heard 
singing. ] 

First Spirit. 

Mortal ! to thy bidding bow’d, 

From my mansion in the cloud, 

Which the breath of twilight builds, 

And the summer’s sun-set gilds 
With the azure and vermilion, 

Which is mix’d for my pavilion ; 

Though thy quest may be forbidden, 

On a star-beam I have ridden ; 

To thine adjuration bow’d, 

Mortal-— be thy wish avow’d ! 

Voice of the Second Spirit, 

Mount Blanc is the monarch of mountains^ 
They crowned him long ago 
On a throne of rocks in a robe of clouds, 
With a diadem of snow. 

Around his waist are forests braced, 

The Avalanche in his hand ; 


10 


MANFRED, 


ACT I* 


But ere it fall, that thundering ball 
Must pause for my command. 

The Glacier’s cold and restless mass 
Moves onward day by day ; 

But I am he who bids it pass, 

Or with its ice delay. 

I am the spirit of the place, 

Could make the mountain bow 
A nd quiver to his cavern’d base — 
And what with me wouldst Thou? 

Voice of the Third Spirit. 

In the blue depth of the waters, 
Where the wave hath no strife. 
Where the wind is a stranger, 

And the sea-snake hath life, 
Where the Mermaid is decking 
Her green hair with shells ; 

Like the storm on the surface 
Came the sound of thy spells ; 

O’er my calm hall of cUral 
The deep echo roll’d — 

To the Spirit of Ocean 
Thy wishes unfold ! 

Fourth Spirit. 

Where the slumbering earthquake 
Lies pillow’d on fire, 

And the lakes of bitumen 
Rise boilingly higher ; 


SCENE 1. 


MANFRED. 


11 


Where the roots of the Andes 
Strike deep in the earth, 

As their summits to heaven 
Shoot soaringly forth ; 

I have quitted my birth-place,. 

Thy bidding' to bide — 

Thy spell hath subdued me, 

Thy will be my guide ! 

Fifth Spirit. 

I am the Rider of the wind, 

The Stirrer of the storm ; 

The hurricane I left behind 
Is yet with lightning warm ; 

To speed to thee, o’er shore and sea 
I swept upon the blast : 

The fleet I met sailed well, and yet. 
’Twill sink ere night be past. 

Sixth Spirit. 

My dwelling is the shadow of the night, 
Why doth thy magic torture me with light ? 

Seventh Spirit. 

The star which rules thy destiny, 

Was ruled, ere earth began, by me : 

It was a world as fresh and fair 
As e’er revolved round sun in air ; 

Its course was free and regular, 

Sgace hosom’d not a loyelier star. 


12 


MANFRED, 


4P.T I 


The hour arrived — and it became 
A wandering- mass of shapeless flame, 

A pathless comet, and a curse, 

The x menace of the universe ; 

Still rolling on with innate force, 

Without a sphere, without a course, 

A bright deformity on high, 

The monster of the upper sky ! 

And thou ! beneath its influence born — 
Thou worm ! whom 1 obey an<J scorn — 
Forced by a power (which is not thine, 

And lent thee but to make thee mine) 

For this brief moment to descend, 

’ Where these weak spirits round thee bend 
And parley with a thing like thee — 

What wouldst thou, Child of Clay ! with me $ 

The Seven Spirits. 

Earth, ocean, air, night, mountains, winds, thy 
star, 

Are at thy beck and bidding, Child of Clay I 
Before thee at thy quest their spirits are — 

What wouldst thou with us, son of mortals—* 
say? 

Man. Forgetfulness— 

First Spi. Of what — of whom — and why ? 

Man. Of that which is within me ; rqa.d it 
there — 

Ye know it, and 1 cannot utter it. 


SCEIfE I. 


MANFRED. 


13 


Spi. We can but give thee that which we 
possess : 

Ask of us subjects, sovereignty, the power 
O’er earth, the whole, or portion, or a sign 
Which shall control the elements, whereof 
We are the dominators, each and ail, 

These shall be thine. 

Man. Oblivion, self oblivion — 

Can ye not wring from out the hidden realms 
Ye offer so profusely what I ask ? 

Spi. It is not in our essence, in our skill ; 

But — thou mayst die. 

Man. Will death bestow it on me ? 

Spi. We are immortal, and do not forget ; 

We are eternal ; and to us the past 
Is, as the future, present. Art thou answered ? 
Man . Ye mock me — but the power which 
brought ye here 

Hath made you mine. Slaves, scoff not at my 
will i 

The mind, the spirit, the Promethean spark, 

The lightning of my being, is as bright, 
Pervading, and far-darting as your own, 

And shall not yield to yours, though coop’d in 
clay ! 

Answer, or I will teach ye what I am. 

Spi. We answer as we answered; our reply 
Is even in thine own words. 

Man. Why say ye so? 

Spi. If, as thou say’st, thine essence be as ours, 

f> 


14 


MANFRED. 


acj: i* 


We have replied in telling thee, the thing 
Mortals call death hath nought to do with us. 
Man. I then have call’d ye from your realms 
in vain ; 

Ye cannot, or ye will not, aid me. 

Spi. Say ; 

What we possess w r e offer ; it is thine : 

Bethink ere thou dismiss us, ask again — 
Kingdom, and sway, and strength, and length of 
days 

Man . Accursed ! what have I to do with days ? 
They are too long already. — Hence — begone ! 
Spi. Yet pause : being here, our will would da 
thee service ; 

Bethink thee, is there then no other gift 
Which we can make not worthless in thine eyes? 
Man. No, none r yet stay — one moment, ere 
we part — 

I v ould behold ye face to face. I hear 
Y :ur voices, sweet and melancholy sound#, 

As music on the waters ; and I see 
The steady aspect of a clear large star ; 

But nothing more. Approach me as ye are. 

Or one, or all, in your accustom \1 forms. 

Spi. We have no forms beyond the elements 
which we are the mind and principle : 

But choose a form — in that we will appear. 

Man. I have no choice ; there is no form on 
earth 

Hideous or beautiful to me. Let him, 


SCENE I. 


MANFRED. 


15 


Who is most powerful of ye, take such aspect 
As unto him may seem most fitting-. — Come ! 
Seventh Spi. ( Appearing in the shape of a beauti- 
ful female fgure.) Behold! 

Man. Oh God ! if it be thus, and thou 
Art not a madness and a mockery, 

I yet might be most happy. — I will clasp thee. 

And we again will be [ The figure vanishes » 

My heart is crush’d ! 

[, Manfred falls senseless . 

{A voice is heard in the Incantation which f allows J) 

When the moon is on the wave, 

And the glow-worm in the g*rass, 

And the meteor on the grave, 

And the wisp on the morass ; 

When the falling stars are shooting. 

And the answer’d owls are hooting. 

And the silent leaves are still 
In the shadow of the hill, 

Shall my soul be upon thine, 

With a power and with a sign. 

Though thy slumber may be deep, 

Yet thy spirit shall not sleep, 

There are shades which will not vanish, 
There are thoughts thou canst not banish ; 

By a power to thee unknown, 

Thou c anst never be alone ; 


MANFRED. 


ACT 


Thou art wrapt as with a shroud. 

Thou art gathered in a cloud ; 

And for ever shalt thou dwell 
In the spirit of this spell. 

Though thou seest me not pass by. 

Thou shalt feel me with thine eye 
As a thing that, though unseen, 

Must be near thee, and hath been ; 

And when in that secret dread 
Thou hast turn’d around thy head* 

Thou shalt marvel I am not 
As thy shadow on the spot. 

And the power which thou dost feel 
Shall be what thou must conceal. 

And a magic voice and verse 
Hath baptized thee with a curse ; 

And a spirit of the air 
Hath begirt thee with a snare ; 

In the wind there is a voice 
Shall forbid thee to rejoice ; 

And to thee shall Night deny } * 

All the quiet of her sky ; 

And the day shall have a sun, 

Which shall make thee wish it done. 

From thy false tears I did distil 
An essence which hath strength to kill ; 


SCENE i. MANFRED. . 17 

From thy own heart I then did wring- 
The black blood in its blackest spring ; 
From thy own smile I snatch’d the snake, 
For ther^ Spil’d as in a brake ; 

From thy own lip I drew the charm 
Which gave all these their cbiefest harm '; 

In proving every poison known, 

I found the strongest was thine own. 

By thy cold breast and serpent smile, 

By thy unfathom’d gulfs of guile, 

By that most seeming virtuous eye. 

By thy shut soul’s hypocrisy ; 

By the perfection of thine art 

Which pass’d for human thine own heart , 

By thy delight in others’ pain, 

And by thy brotherhood of Cain, 

I call upon thee ! and compel 
Thyself to be thy proper Hell. 

And on thy head I pour the vial 
Which doth devote thee to this trial 
Nor to slumber, nor to die, 

Shall be in thy destiny ; 

Though thy death shall still seem near 

To thy wish, but as a fear 

Lo ! the spell now works around thee, 

And the clankless chain hath bound thee ; 
O’er thy heart and brain together 
Hath the word been pass’d — now wither 1 


18 


MANFRED. 


ACT I. 


SCENE II. 

The Mountain of the *J ungfrtjp.- — Time , Morn- 
ing. — Manfred alone upon the Cliffs . 

Man. The spirits I have raised abandon me — 
The spells which I have studied baffle me — 

The remedy I reck’d of tortured me ; 

I lean no more on super-human aid, 

Jt hath no power upon the past, and for 
The future, till the past be gulf’d in darkness. 

It is not of my search. — My mother Earth ! 

And thou fresh breaking Day, and you, ye Moun- 
tains, 

Why are ye beautiful ? I cannot love ye. 

And thou, the bright eye of the universe. 

That openest over all, and unto all 

Art a delight — thou shin’st not ou my heart. 

And you, ye crags, upon whose extreme edge 
I stand, and on the torrent’s brink beneath 
Behold the tall pines dwindled as to shrubs 
In dizziness of distance ; when a leap, 

A stir, a motion, even a breath, would bring 
My breast upon its rocky bosom’s bed 
To rest for ever — wherefore do I pause ? 

I feel the impulse — yet I do not plunge ; 

I see the peril — yet do not recede ; 

And my brain reels — and yet my foot is firm:. 
There is a power upon me which withholds 


SCENE IU 


MANFRED. 


It) 


And makes it my fatality to live ; 

If it be life to wear within myself 
This barrenness of spirit, and to be 
My own soul’s sepulchre, *for I have ceased 
To justify ray deeds unto myself — 

The last infirmity of evil. Ay, 

Thou winged and cloud-cleaving minister, 

[An eagle passes. 

Whose happy flight is highest into heaven, 

Well may’st thou swoop so near me — I should be 
Thy prey, and gorge thine eaglets ; thou art gone 
Where the eye cannot follow thee ; but thine 
Yet pierces downward, onward, or above, 

With a pervading vision. — Beautiful ! 

How beautiful is all this visible world! 

How glorious in its action and itself; 

But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we, 
Half dust, half deity, alike unfit 
To sink or soar, with our mix’d essence make 
A conflict of its elements, and breathe 
The breath of degradation and of pride, 
Contending with low wants and lofty will 
Till our mortality predominates, 

And men are — what they name not to themselves, 
And trust not to each other. Hark ! the note, 
[The Shepherd's pipe in ike distance is heard 
The natural music of the mountain reed — » 

For here the patriarchal days arc not • 

A pastoral-fable — pipes in the liberal *ir, 

I\£ix’d witji the sweet bells of the sauntering herd ; 


SO MANFRED. ACT ft 

My soul would drink those echoes.-— Oh, that I 
were 

The viewless spirit of a lovely sound, 

A living* voice, a breathing* harmony, 

A bodiless enjoyment — born and dying 
With the blest tone which made me ! 

Enter //'em below a Chamois Hunter.. 
Chamois Hunt. Even so 

This way the chamois leapt : her nimble feet 
Have baffled me ; my g*ains to-day will scarce 
Repay my break-neck travail. — What is here ? 
Who seems not of my trade, and yet hath reach’ dr 
A height which none even of our mountaineers, 
Save our best hunters, may attain : his garb 
Is goodly, his mien manly, and his air 
Proud as a free-born peasant’s, at this distance. — 
I will approach him nearer. 

Man. ( not perceiving the other.') To be thus— 
Grey-hair’d with anguish, like these blasted pines. 
Wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless* 
A blighted trunk upon a cursed root, 

Which but supplies a feeling to decay — 

And to be thus, eternally but thus, 

Having been otherwise ! Now furrow’d o’er 
With wrinkles, plough’d by moments, not by 
years ; 

And hours — all tortured into ages — hours 
Which I cutlive ! — Ye toppling crags of ice !' 

Ye avalanches, whom a breath draws down 


SCENE II. 


MANFRED. 


21 


In mountainous o’erwhelming, come and crush 
me ; 

I hear ye momently above, beneath, 

Crash with a frequent conflict ; but ye pass, 

And only fall on things which still would live; 
On the young flourishing forest, or the hut 
And hamlet of the harmless villager. 

C. Hun. The mists begin to rise from up the 
valley ; 

I’ll warn him to descend, or he may chance 
To lose at once his way and life together. 

Man. The mists boil up around the glaciers ; 
clouds 

llise curling fast beneath me, white and sulphury, 
Dike from the roused ocean of deep Hell, 

Whose every wave breaks on a living shore, 
Heaped with the damn’d like pebbles. — I am 
giddy. 

C. Hun. I must approach him cautiously ; if 
near, 

A sudden step will startle him, and he 
Seems tottering already. 

Man. Mountains have fallen, 

Heaving a gap in the clouds, and with the shock 
Rocking their Alpine brethren ; filling up 
The ripe green valleys with destruction’s splin- 
ters ; 

Damming the rivers with a sudden dash, 

Which crush’d the waters into mist, and made 
Their fountains find another channel— -thus, 


22 


MANFRED, 


ACT I. 


Thus, in its old age, did Mount Rosenberg— ( 
Why stood I not beneath it ? 

C. Hun. Friend ! have a care, 

Your next step may be fatal ! — for the love 
Of him who made you, stand not on that brink ! 

Man. (not hearing him.) Such would have been 
for me a fitting tomb ; 

My bones had then been quiet in their depth ; 
They had not then been strewn upon the rocks 
For the wind’s pastime — as thus — thus they shall 
be — 

In this one plunge.— Farewell, ye opening hea» 
vens ! 

Look not upon me thus reproachfully — 
ye were not meant for me — Earth ! take these 
atoms ! 

(As Manfred is in act to spring from the cliff \ 
the Chamois Hunter seizes and retains him 
with a sudden grasp.) 

C. Hun. Hold, madman ! — though aweary of 
thy life, 

Stain not our pure vales with thy guilty blood. — 
Away with me 1 will not quit my hold. 

Mail. I am most sick at heart — nay, grasp me 
not — 

I am all feebleness — the mountains whirl 
Spinning around me — I grow blind — What art 
thou ? 

C f Ilun. I’ll answer that anon.— Away with 
me— 


MANFRED. 


SCENE II. 


23 


The clouds grow thicker — there— now lean on 
me — 

Place your foot here — here, take this staff, and 
cling 

A moment to that shrub — now give me your hand, 
And hold fast by my girdle — softly — well — 

The Chalet will be gained within an hour— 
Come on, we’ll quickly find a surer footing. 

And something like a pathway, which the torrent 
Hath wash’d since winter.— Come, ’tis bravely 
done— 

You should have been a hunter. — Follow me. 

(Jls they descend the rocks with difficulty , 
the scene closes.) 


END OF ACT THE FIRST/ 


24 


MANFRED. 


ACT U- 


ACT II. 

SCENE I. 

A Cottage amongst the Bernese Alps 

M anfred and the Chamois Hunter. 

C. Hun. No, no — yet pause — thou must not 
yet go forth : 

Thy mind and body are alike unfit 

To trust each other, for some hours, at least % 

When thou art better, I will be thy guide 

But whither ? 

Man. It imports not: I do know 

My route full well, and need no further guidance. 
C. Iiun. Thy garb and gait bespeak thee ©V 
high lineage — 

One of the many chiefs, whose castled crags 
Look o’er the lower valleys — which of these 
May call thee Lord ? I only know their portals ; 
My way of life leads me but rarely down 
To bask by the huge hearths of those old halls, 
Carousing with the vassals ; but the paths, 
Which step from out our mountains to their doon 
I know from childhood — which of these is thine 
Man. No matter. 

■C. Hun. Well, sir, pardon me the question* 


*v v 


MANFRED. 


SCENE 1. 


23 


And be of better cheer. Come, taste my wine ; 
’Tis of an ancient vintage ; many a day 
'T has thawed my veins^among our glaciers, now 
Let it do thus for thine — Come, pledge me fairly. 
Man. Away, away ! there’s blood upon the 
brim ! 

Will it then never — never sink in the earth? 

C. Hun. What dost thou mean? thy senses 
wander from thee. 

Man. I say ’tis blood — my blood ! the pure 
warm stream 

Which ran in the veins of my fathers, and in ours 
When wc were in our youth, and had one heart, 
And loved each other as we should not love. 

And this was shed : but still it rises up, 
Colouring the clouds, that shut me out from hea- 
ven, 

Where thou art not — and I shall never be. 

C. Hun. Man of strange words, and some 
half-maddening sin, 

Which makes thee people vacancy, whate’er 
Thy dread and sufferance be, there’s comfort yet — 

The aid of holy men, and heavenly patience — 

Man. Patience and patience ! Heoce — that 
word was made 

For brutes of burthen, not for birds of prey ; 
Preach it to mortals of a dust like thine, — 
l ain not of thine order. 

C. Han . Thanks to heaven ! 

3 


26 


MANFRED, 


ACT is. 


I would not be of thine for the free fame 
Of William Tell; but whatsoe’er thine ill, 

It must be borne, and these wild starts are useless. 
Man. Do I not bear it ? — Look on me — I live. 
C. Hun . This is convulsion, and no healthful 
life. 

Man. I tell thee, man ! I have lived many 
years, 

Many long years, but they are nothing now 
To those which I must number : ages — ages— 
Space and eternity— and consciousness, 

With the fierce thirst of death — and still unslak- 
ed ! 

C. Hun. Why, on thy brow the seal of mid- 
dle age 

Hath scarce been set ; I am thine elder far. 

Man. Think’st thou existence doth depend on 
time ? 

It doth ; but actions are our epochs : mine 
Have made my days and nights imperishable. 
Endless, and all alike, as sands on the shore, 
Innumerable atoms ; and one desert, 

Barren and cold, on which the wild waves break. 
But nothing rests, save carcasses and wrecks, 
Hocks, and the salt-surf weeds of bitterness. 

C. Hun. Alas ! he’s mad — but yet I must not 
leave him. 

Man. I would I were— for then the things I see 
Would be but a distempered dyeam, 


SCENE I. 


MANFRED, 


27 


C. hun. What is it 

That thou dost see, or think thou look’st upon ? 
Man. Myself, and thee — a peasant of the 
Alps — 

Thy humble virtues, hospitable home. 

And spirit patient, pious, proud and free ; 

Thy self-respect, grafted on innocent thoughts ; 
Thy days of health, and nights of sleep ; thy toils, 
By danger dignified, yet guiltless ; hopes 
Of cheerful old age and a quiet grave, 

With cross and garland over its green turf. 

And thy grandchildren’s love for epitaph; 

This do 1 see — and then 1 look within — 

Ii matters not — my soul was scorch’d already I 
C. Hun . And would’st thou then exchange 
thy lot for mine ? 

Man. No, friend ! I would not wrong thee, 
nor exchange 

My lot with living being : I can bear — 

However wretchedly, ’tis still to bear— 

In life what others could not brook to dream* 

But perish in their slumber. 

C. Hun. And with this — 

This cautious feeling for another’s pain, 

Canst thou be black with evil ?— say not so. 

Can one of gentle thoughts have wreak’d re- 
venge 

Upon his enemies ? 

Man. Oh ! no, no, no ! 

My injuries came down on those who loved me — 


28 


MANFRED. 


ACT IT. 


On those whom I best loved : I never quell’d 
An enemy, save in my just defence — 

But my embrace was fatal. 

C. Hun. Heaven give thee rest ! 

And penitence restore thee to thyself; 

My prayers shall be for thee. 

Man. I need them not, 

But can endure thy pity. I depart — 

5 Tis time — farewell ! — Here’s gold, and thanks 
for thee — 

No words — it is thy due — Follow me not — 

1 know my path — the mountain peril’s past - 
And once again, I charge thee, follow not ! 

[Exit M anfred. 

SCENE II. 

.1 lower Halley in the Alps. — A Cataract. 
Enter Manfred. 

Is it not noon — the sunbow’s rays’(l) still arch 
The torrent with the many hues of heaven, 

And roll the sheeted silver’s waving column 
O’er the crag’s headlong perpendicular, 

And fling its lines of foaming light along, 

And to and fro, like the pale courser’s tail, 

The Giant steed, to be bestrode by Death, 


SCENE II. 


MANTREDu 


29 


As told in the Apocalypse. No eyes 
But mine now drink this sight of loveliness ; 

I should be sole in this sweet solitude. 

And with the Spirit of the place divide 
The homage of these waters. — I will cal her. 

(Manfred takes some of the water into the 
palm of his hand, and fings it in the 
air , muttering the adjuration. After a 
pause , the Witch of the Alps rises 
beneath the arch of the sunbeam of the 
torrent . ) 

•Man. Beautiful Spirit ! with thy hair of light. 
And dazzling eyes of glory, in whose form 
The charms of Earth’s least-mortal daughters 
grow 

To an unearthly stature, in an essence 
Of purer elements: while the hues of youth,— 
Carnation’d like a sleeping infant’s cheek, 
Rock’d by the beating of her mother’s heart, 

Or the rose tints, which summer’s twilight leaves 
Upon the lofty glacier’s virgin snow, 

The blush of earth embracing with her heaven, — 
Tinge thy celestial aspect, and make tame 
The beauties of the sunbow which bends o’er 
thee. 

Beautiful Spirit ! in thy calm clear brow. 
Wherein is glass’d serenity of soul, 

Which of itself shows immortality, 

I read that thou wilt pardon to a Son 
3 * 


MANFRED, 


ACT II. 


40 


Of Earth, whom the abstruser powers permit 
At times to commune with them — if that he 
Avail him of his spells — to call thee thus, 

And gaze on thee a moment. 

Witch. Son of Earth ! 

i know thee, and the powers which give thee 
power ; 

I know thee for a man of many thoughts. 

And deeds of good and ill, extreme in both, 

Fatal and fated in thy sufferings. 

I have expected this — what wouldst thou with me ? 

Man. To look upon thy beauty — nothing further. 
The face of the earth hath madden’d me, and 1 
Take refuge in her mysteries, and pierce 
To the abodes of those who govern her — 

But they can nothing aid me. I have sought 
Prorn them what they could not bestow, and now 
I search no further. 

Witch. What could be the quest 
Which is not in the power of the most powerful, 
The rulers of the invisible ? 

Man. A boon ; 

JBut why should I repeat it? ’twere in vain. 

Witch. I know not that ; let thy lips utter it. 
Man. Well, though it torture me, ’tis but the 
same ; 

My pang shall find a voice. From my youth up- 
wards 

TvTy spirit walk’d not with the souls of men, 

Xor look’d upon the earth with human eyes; 

The thirst of their ambition was not mine, 


JS.CENE ij. 


MANFftED. 


31 


The aim of their existence was not mine ; 

My joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers, 
Made me a stranger ; though I wore the form, 

I had no sympathy with breathing flesh, 
iNor midst the creatures of clay that girded me 

Was there but one who but of her anon. 

I said, with men, and with the thought of men, 

I held but slight communion ; but instead, 

My joy was in the Wilderness, to breathe 
The difficult air of the iced mountain’s top, 
Where the birds dare not build, nor insect’s wing 
Flit o’er the herbless granite ; or to plunge 
Into the torrent, and to roll along 
On (he swift whirl of the new breaking wave 
Of river-stream or ocean, in their flow. 

In these my early strength exulted ; or 
To follow through the night the moving moon, 

The stars and their development ; or catch 
The dazzling lightnings till my eyes grew dim ; 

Or to look, list’ning, on the scattered leaves, 
While Autumn winds were at their evening song. 
These were my pastimes, and to be alone ; 

For if the beings, of whom I was one, — 

Hating to be so, — cross’d me in my path, 

I felt myself degraded back to them, 

And was all clay again. And then I dived, 

In my lone wanderings, to the caves of death, 
Searching its cause in its effect; and drew 
.From wither’d bones, and skulls, and heap’d up 
flust, 


32 


JVIANFRED, 


ACT II. 


Conclusions most forbidden. Then I pass’d. 

The nights of years in sciences untaught. 

Save in the old-time ; and with time and toil, 

And terrible ordeal, and such penance 
As in itself hath power upon the air, 

And spirits that do compass air and earth, 

Space, and the peopled infinite, I made 
Mine eyes familiar with eternity, 

Such as, before me, did the Magi, and 
He who from out their fountain dwellings raised. 
Eros and Anteros,(2) at Gadara, 

As I do thee ; — and with my knowledge grew 
The thirst of knowledge, and the power and joy 
Of this most bright intelligence, until 

Witch . Proceed. 

Man. Oh ! I but thus prolonged my words, 
Boasting these idle attributes, because 
As I approach the core of my heart’s grief — 

But to my task. I have not named to thee 
Father or mother, mistress, friend, or being, 
With whom I wore the chain of human ties ; 

If I had such, they seem’d not such to me — 

Yet there was one 

Witch. Spare not thyself — proceed. 

Man. She was like me in lineaments— her eyes. 
Her hair, her features, all, to the very tone 
Even of her voice, they said were like to mine ; 
But soften’d all, and temper’d into beauty ; 

She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings, 
The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind 
To eomprsttend the universe : nor these 


SCENE ir. 


MANFRED. 


33 


Alone, but with them gentler powers than mine, 
Pity, and smiles, and tears — which I had not ; 
And tenderness — but that I had for her ; 
Humility — and that I never had. 

I Ier faults were mine — her virtues were her own— 
I loved her, and destroy’d her ! 

Witch . With thy hand? 

Mem. Not with my hand, but heart — which 
broke her heart — 

It £azed on mine, and withered. I have shed 
Blood, but not hers — and yet her blood was shed — 
I saw— and could not stanch it. 

Witch. And for this— 

A being of the race thou dost despise. 

The order which thine own would rise above, 

Mi ngling with us and ours, thou dost forego 
The gifts of our great knowledge, and shrink’st 
back 

To recreant mortality— —Away ! 

Man. Daughter of Air ! I tell thee, since that 
hour — 

But words are breath — look on me in my sleep, 
Or watch my watchings — Come and sit by me ! 
My solitude is solitude no more, 

But peopled with the Furies : — I have gnash’d 
My teeth in darkness till returning morn, 

Then cursed myself till sunset ; — I have pray’d 
For madness as a blessing — ’tis denied me. 

I have afFronted death — but in the war 
Of elements the waters shrunk from me, 


34 


MANFRED. 


ACT U . 


And fatal things pass’d harmless — the cold hand 
Of an all-pitiless demon held me back, 

Back by a single hair, which would not break. 

In phantasy, imagination, all 

The affluence of my soul — which one day was 

A Croesus in creation — I plunged deep, 

But, like an ebbing wave, it dash’d me back 
Into the gulf of my unfathom’d thought. 

I plunged amidst mankind — Forgetfulness 
I sought in all, save w here ’tis to be found. 

And that I have to learn— my sciences, 

3Vly long-pursued and super-human art. 

Is mortal here — I dwell in my despair— 

And live — and live for ever. 

Witch. It may be 

That I can aid thee. 

Man. To do this thy power 

Must wake the dead, or lay me low with them. 
Do so — in any shape — in any hour — 

With any torture — so it be the last. 

Witch. That is not in my province ; but if thou 
Wilt swear obedience to my will, and do 
\Iy bidding, it may help thee to thy wishes. 

Man. I will not swear— Obey ! and whom ? 
the spirits 

Whose presence I command, and be the slave 
Of those who served me— Never ! 

Witch. Is this all ? 

Hast thou no gentler answer? Yet bethink thee,' 
And pause ere thou rejectest. 


§.CEttE W. 


JVlANFflE©. 


35 


■At an. I have said it. 

Witch. Enough ! — I may retire then — say! 
Alan. Retire ! 

[ The Witch disappears.'] 
At cm. [atone) We are the fools of time and ter- 
ror : Days 

Steal on us and steal from us ; yet we live, 
Loathing our life, and dreading still to die. 

In ail the days of this detested yoke — 

This vital weight upon the struggling heart, 
Which sinks with sorrow, or beats quick with pain, 
Or joy that ends in agony or faintness — 

In all the days of past and future, for 
In life there is no present, we can number 
How few — how less than few — wherein the soul 
Forbears to pant for death, and yet draws back 
As from a stream in winter, though the chill 
He but a moment’s. I have one resource 
Still in my science — I can call the dead, 

And ask them what it is we dread to be : 

The sternest answer can but be the Grave, 

And that is nothing — if they answer not — 

The buried Prophet answered to the Hag 
Of Endor; and the Sparlan Monarch drew 
From the Byzantine maid’s unsleeping spirit 
An answer and his destiny — he slew 
That which he loved, unknowing what he slew, 
And died unpardon’d — though he call’d in aid 
The Phyxian Jove, and in Phigalia roused 
The Arcadian Evocators to compel 


36 


MANFRED. 


ACT II. 


The indignant shadow to depose her wrath, 

Or fix her term of vengeance — she replied 
In words of dubious import, but fulfill’d. (3) 

If I had never lived, that which I love 
Had still been living; had I never loved, 

That which I love would still be beautiful — 
Happy and giving happiness. What is she ? 
What is she now — a sufferer for my sius — • 

A thing I dare not think upon — or nothing. 
Within few hours I shall not call in vain — 

Yet in this hour I dread the thing I dare : 

Until this hour I never shrunk to gaze 
On spirit, good or evil — now I tremble, 

And feel a strange cold thaw upon my heart ; 
But I can act even what I most abhor, 

And champion human fears. — The night ap- 
proaches. [ Exit. 


SCENE III. 

The Summit of the Jungfrau Mountain. 
Enter First Destiny. 

The moon is rising broad, and round, and bright; 
And here on snows, where never human foot 
Of common mortal trod, we nightly tread, 

And leave no traces ; o’er the savage sea, 

The glassy ocean of the mountain ice, 


SCENE III. 


MANFRED. 


37 


We skim its rugged breakers, which put on 
The aspect of a tumbling tempest’s foam, 

Frozen in a moment — a dead whirlpool’s image ; 
And this most steep fantastic pinnacle. 

The fretwork of some earthquake— -where the 
clouds 

Pause to repose themselves in passing by— 

Is sacred to our revels, or our vigils ; 

Here do I wait my sisters, on our way 

To the Hall of Arimanes, for to-night 

Is our great festival — ’tis strange they come not; 

A voice without , singing. 

The Captive Usurper, 

Hurl’d down from the throne, 

Lay buried in torpor, 

Forgotten and lone ; 

I broke through his slumbers, 

I shivered his chain, 

I leagued him with numbers — 

He’s Tyrant again ! 

With the blood of a million he’ll answer my care. 
With a nation’s destruction — his flight and de- 
spair. 

Second Voice, without 
The ship sail’d on, the ship sail’d fast, 

Bttt I left not a sail, and 1 left not a mast : 

* 


38 


MANFRED 


ACT II. 


There is not a plank of the hull or the deck, 

And there is not a wretch to lament o’er his 
wreck ; 

Save one, whom I held, as he swam, by the hail*, 
And he was a subject well worthy my care ; 

A traitor on land, and a pirate at sea — 

But I saved him to wreak further havoc for me ! 

First Destiny, ansviering. 

The city lies sleeping* ; 

The morn, to deplore it, 

May dawn on it weeping : 

Sullenly, slowly, 

The black plague flew o’er it — 
Thousands lie lowly ; 

Tens of thousands shall perish — 

The living shall fly from 
The sick they should cherish ; 

But nothing can vanquish 
The touch that they die from. 

Sorrow and anguish, 

And evil and dread, 

Envelop a nation — 

The blest are the dead, 

Who see not the sight 
Of their own desolation — 

This work of a night — 

This wreck of a realm — this deed of my doing— 
For ages I’ve done, and shall still be renewing ! 


SCENE III. 


MANFRED. 


39 


Enter the Second and Third Destinies. 

The Three , 

Our hands contain the hearts of men. 

Our footsteps are their graves ; 

We only give to take again 
The spirits of our slaves ! 

First Des. Welcome l — Where’s Nemesis? 
Second Des . At some great work; 

But what I know not, for my hands were full. 
Third Des. Behold she cometh. 

Enter Nemesis. 

First Des. Say, where hast thou been?— 
My sisters and thyself are slow to-night. 

Nem. I was detain’d repairing shattered 
thrones, 

Marrying fools, restoring dynasties, 

Avenging men upon their enemies, 

And making them repent their own revenge ; 
Goading the wise to madness ; from tlje dujl 
Shaping out oracles to rule the world 
Afresh, for they were waxing out of date, 

And mortals dared to ponder for themselves, 

To weigh kings in the balance, and to speak 
Of freedom, the forbidden fruit. Away ! 

We have outstaid the hour — mount we our cloud*! 

[Exeunt. 


41 ) 


MANFRED. 


ACT II. 


SCENE IV. 

IFhe Hall of Arimanes — Arimanes on his Throne 
a Globe of Fire , surrounded by the Spirits. 

Hymn of the Spi rits. 

Kail to our Master ! — Prince of Earth and Air !— 
Who walks the clouds and waters — in his hand 
The sceptre of the elements, which tear 
Themselves to chaon at his high command ! 

He breataeth — and a tempest shakes the sea ; 
f He speaketh — and the clouds reply in thunder ; 
He gazeth — from his glance the sunbeams flee ; 
He movcth — earthquakes rend the world asun- 
der. 

Beneath his footsteps the volcanoes rise; 

His shadow is the Pestilence ; his path 
The comets .ierald through the crackling skies ; 

And planets turn to ashes at his wrath. 

To him War offers dail) sacrifice ; 

To him Death pay his tribute ; Life is hi*, 
With all its infinite of agonies — 

And his the spirit of whatever is ! 

Enter the Destinies and Nemesis. 

First Des. Glory to Arimanes ! on the earth 
His power increaseth — both my sisters did 
His bidding, nor did 1 neglect my duty ! 

Second Des. Glory to Arimanes ! we who bow 


SCENE III. 


MANFRED. 


41 


The necks of men, bow down before his throne ! 

Third Des. Glory to Ariraanes !— we await 
His nod ! 

Nem. Sovereign of Sovereigns ! we are thine. 
And all that liveth, more or less, is ours, 

And most things wholly so ; still to increase 
Our power increasing thine, demands our care, 
And we are vigilant — Thy late commands 
Have been fulfilled to the utmost. 

Enter Manfred. 

A Spi. Wbat is here ? 

A. mortal ! — Thou most rash and fatal wretch, 

_ Bow down and worship ! 

Second Spi. I do know the man— 

A Magian of great power, and fearful skill ! 
Third Spi. Bow down and worship, slave ! — 
What, know’st thou not 

Thine and our Sovereign? — Tremble, and obey! 
All the Spirits. Prostrate thyself, and thy con- 
demned clay, 

Child of the Earth ! or dread the worst 
Man. I know it; 

And yet ye see I kneel not ; 

Fourth Spi. ’Twill be taught thee. 

Man. ’Tis taught already ; — many a night on 
the earth, 

On the bare ground, have I bow’d down my face, 
Aud strew’d my head with ashes ; I have known 
The fulness of humiliation, for 
A * 


42 


MANFRED. 


A<jar IT. 


I sunk before my vain despair, and knelt 
To my own desolaiion. 

Fifth Spi. Dost thou dare 

Refuse to Arimanes on his throne 
What the whole earth accords, beholding 1 not 
-The terror of his Glory — Crouch ! i say. 

l.Tan. .rid him bow down to that which is above 
him, 

The overruling Infinite— the maker 

Who made him not for worship— let him kneel, 

And we will kneel together. 

The Srm its. Crush the worm ! 

Tear him in pieces ! — 

Jjcs. Hence ! Avaunt ! — he’s mine, 

Princa of the Powers invisible ! This man 
Is of uo f. cmmon order, as his port 
And pres 3nce here denote ; his sufferings 
Have been of an immortal nature, like 
Our own ; his knowledge and his powers and will. 
As lar ixz iz compatible with clay, 

Which clogs the ethereal essence, have been such 
Ac clay hath seldom borne ; his aspirations 
Hava been beyond the dwellers of the earth, 

And they have only taught him what we know— 
That knowledge is not happiness, and science 
But an exchange of ignorance for that 
Which iz another kind of ignorance. 

This is not ail— -the passions, attributes 
Of earth and heaven, from which no powei*, nor 
being. 


SCENE III. 


MANFRED. 


43 


Nor breath from the worm upwards is exempt, 
Have pierced his heart ; and in their consequence 
Made him a thing, which I, who pity not, 

Yet pardon those who pity. He is mine. 

And thine, it may be — be it so, or not, 

No other Spirit in this region hath 
A soul like his— -or power upon his soul. 

JV’em. What doth he here then ? 

First Des. Let him answer that. 

Man. Ye know what I have known ; and with- 
out power 

I could not be amongst ye : but there are 
Powers deeper still beyond — I come in quest 
Of such, to answer unto what I seek. 

JV’em. What wouldst thou ? 

Man. Thou canst not reply to me. 

Call up the dead — my question is for them. 

JV’em. Great Arimanes, doth thy will avouch 
The wishes of this mortal ? 

Ari. Yea. 

JV’em. Whom would’st thou 

Uncharnel ? 

Man . One without a tomb— call up 

Astarte. 

Nemesis. 

Shadow ! or Spirit ! 

Whatever thou art, 

Which still doth inherit 
The whole or a part 


44 


MANFRED, 


act ir. 


Of the form of thy birth, 

Of the mould of thy clay. 

Which returned to the earth, 

Re-appear to the day ! 

Bear what thou borest, 

The heart and the form, 

And the aspect thou worest 
Redeem from the worm, 

Appear ! — Appear ! — Appear ! 

Who sent thee there requires thee here ! 

[ The Phantom of Aslarte rises and stands in 
the midst .] 

Man. Can this be death? there’s bloom upon 
her cheek ; 

But now I see it is no living' hue, 

But a strange hectic — like the unnatural red 
Which Autumn plants upon the perish’d leaf. 

It is the same ! Oh, God ! that I should dread 
To look upon the same — Astarte ! — No, 

I cannot speak to her — but bid her speak— 
Forgive me or condemn me. 

Nemesis. 

By the power which hath broken 
The grave which enthrall’d thee, 

Speak to him who hath spoken, 

Or those who have call’d thee ! 

Man. She is silent, 

And in that silence I am more than answered. 


SCENE IU. MANFRED. 45 

Nem. My power extends no further. Prince 
of air! 

It rests with thee alone — command her voice. 
Ari. Spirit, obey this sceptre ! 

Nem. Silent still ! 

She is not of our order, but belongs 

To the other powers. Mortal ! tby quest is vain, 

And we are baffled also. 

Man. Hear me, hear me — 

Astarte ! my beloved ! speak to me : 

I have so much endured — so much endure — 
Look on me ! the grave hath not changed thee 
more 

Than I am changed for thee. Thou lovedst me 
Too much, as I loved thee : we were not made 
To torture thus each other, though it were 
The deadliest sin to love as we have loved. 

Say that thou loath’st me not — that I do bear 
This punishment for both — that thou wilt be 
One of the blessed — and that I shall die, 

For hitherto all hateful things conspire 
To bind me in existence — in a life 
Which makes me shrink from immortality— 

A future like the past. I cannot rest. 

I know not what 1 ask, nor what I seek : 

I feel but what thou art — and what I am ; 

And I would hear yet once before I perish 
The voice which was my music — Speak to me! 

For I have call’d on thee in the still night, 


46 


MANFRED. 


ACT li. 


Startled the slumbering birds from the hush’d 
boughs, 

And woke the mountain wolves, and made the 
caves 

Acquainted with thy vainly echoed name, 

Which answered me ; many things answered me — 
Spirits and men — but thou wert silent all. 

Yet speak to me ! I have outwatch’d the stars, 
And gazed o’er heaven in vain in search of thee. 
Speak to me ! I have wandered o’er the earth 
And never found thy likeness — Speak to me ! 
Look on the fiends around they feel for me : 

I fear them not, and feel for thee alone — 

Speak to me ! though it be in wrath; — but say— 
I reck not what — but let me hear thee once — 
This once — once more ! 

Phantom of Astarte. Manfred ! 

Alan. Say on, say on — 

I live but in the sound — it is thy voice l 
Phan . Manfred ! To-morrow ends thine 
earlhly ills. 

Farewell ! 

Alan. Yet one word more — am I forgiven ? 
Phan. Farewell ! 

Man. Say, shall we meet again? 

Phan. Farewell ! 

Man. One word for mercy ! Say thou lovest me. 
Phan. Manfred ! 

[ The Spirit of Astarte disappears. 
She’s gone, and will not be recall’d ; 


.A em. 


SCENE III. 


MANFRED. 


47 


Her words will be fulfill’d. Return to the earth. 

A Spir. He is convulsed. This is to be a mortal 
And seek the things beyond mortality. 

Another Spirit. Yet, see, he mastereth him- 
self, and makes 

His torture tributary to his will. 

Had he been one of us, he would have made 
An awful spirit. 

Nem. Hast thou further question 

Of our great sovereign, or his worshippers r 
Man. None. 

Nem. Then for a time farewell. 

Man. We meet then ! Where ? On the earth ? 
Even as thou wilt : and for the grace accorded 
I now depart a debtor. Fare ye well ! 

[Exit Manfred. 

( Scene closes.) 


END OF ACT SECOND. 


ACT n\. 

SCENE r. 

Ji Hall in the Castle of Manfred . 

Manfred and Herman. 

Man. What is the hour ? 

Her. It wauts but one till sun-set, 

And promises a lovely twilight. 

Man. Say, 

Are all things so disposed of in the tower 
As l directed? 

Her . All, my lord, are ready ; 

Here is the key and casket 
Man. It is well : 

Thou mayst retire. [Exit Herman. 

Man. (alone.) There is a calm upon me— 
Inexplicable stillness! which till now 
Did not belong to what I knew of life. 

If that I did not know philosophy 
To be of all our vanities the ■ iliest, 

The merest word that ever fool’d the ear 
From out the schoolman’s jargon, I should deem 
The golden secret, the sought “ Kalon,” found, 
A'nd seated in my soul. It will not last. 


9C£N E f. 


MANFRED* 


49 


But it is well to have known it, though but once s 
It hath enlarged my thoughts with a new sense, 
And I within my tablets would note down 
That there is such a ft "log. Who is there ? 

Re-enter Herman. 

My lord, the abbot of St. Maurice craves 
To greet your presence. 

Enter the Abbot of St. Maurice. 

Abbot. Peace be with Count Manfred ! 

Alan. Thanks, holy father ! welcome to thesff 
walls ; 

Thy presence honours them, and blesseth those' 
Who dwell within them. 

Abbot. Would it were so, Count ! — 

But I would fain confer with thee alone. 

Alan . Herman, retire. What would my re- 
verend guest ? 

Abbot. Thus, without prelude : — Age and zeal, 
my office, 

And good intent, must plead my privilege ; 

Our near, though not acquainted neighbourhood, 
May also be my herald. Rumours strange, 

And of unholy nature, are abroad, 

And busy with thy .iame ; a noble name 
For centuries ; may he who bears it now 
Transmit it unimpair’d ! 

Man. Proceed,— I listen. 


30 


MANFRED. 


ACT III. 


Abbot. ’Tis said thou holdest converse with the 
things 

Which are forbidden to the search of man ; 

That with the dwellers of the dark abodes, 

The many evil and unheavenly spirits 
Which walk the valley of the shade of death, 
Thou communest. I know that with mankind, 
Thy fellows in creation, thou dost rarely 
Exchange thy thoughts, and that thy solitude 
Is as an anchorite’s, were it but holy. 

Alan. And what are they who do avouch these 
things ? 

Abbot. My pious brethren — the scared pea- 
santry — 

Even thy own vassals — who do look on thee 
With most unquiet eyes. Thy life’s in peril. 
Alan. Take it. 

Abbot. I come to saye, and not destroy — 

I would not pry into thy secret soul ; 

Eut if these things be sooth, there still is time 
For penitence and pity : reconcile thee 
With the true church, and through the church to 
heaven. 

Alan. I hear thee. This is my reply ; whatever 
I may have been, or am, doth rest between 
Heaven and myself. 1 shall not choose a mortal 
To be my mediator. Have I sinn’d 
Against your ordinances ? prove and punish ! 

Abbot. My son ! 1 did not speak of punishmc 
Eut penitence and pardon; — with thyself 


scene i. 


MANFRE*. 


51 


The choice of such remains — and for the last, 
Our institutions and our strong' belief 
Have given me power to smooth the path from sin 
To higher hope and better thoughts; the first 
I leave to heaven — “ Vengeance is mine alone!” 
So saith the Lord, and with all humbleness 
His servant echoes back the awful word. 

Man. Old man ! there is no power in holy men., 
Nor charm in prayer — nor purifying form 
Of penitence — nor outward look — nor fast — 
Nor agony — nor, greater than all these, 

The innate tortures of that deep despair, 

Which is remorse without the fear of hell, 

But all in all sufficient to itself 

Would make a hell of heaven — can exorcise 

From out the unbounded spirit, the quick sense 

Of its own sins, wrongs, sufferance, and revenge 

Upon itself ; there is no future pang 

Can deal that justice on the self-condemned 

He deals on his own soul. 

Abbot. All this is well ; 

For this will pass away, and be succeeded 
By an auspicious hope, which shall look up 
With calm assurance to that blessed place. 
Which all who seek may win, \Vhatever be 
Their earthly errors, so they be atoned : 

And the commencement of atonement is 
The sense of its necessity. Say on — 

And all our church can teach thee shall be taughi ; 
And all we can absolve thee, shall be pardon’d* 


32 


MANFRED. 


ACT irr. 


Man. When Rome’s sixth Emperor was near 
his last, 

The victim of a self-inflicted wound, 

To shun the torments of a public death 
From senates once his slaves, a certain soldier, 
With show of loyal pity, would have stanch’d 
The gushing throat with his officious robe ; 

The dying Roman thrust him back and said — 
Some empire stilt in his expiring glance, 

“ It is too late — is this fidelity 
Abbot. And what of this ? 

Alan. I answer with the Roman—. 

“ It is too late !” 

Abbot . It never can be so, 

To reconcile thyself with thy own soul, 

And thy own soul with heaven. Hast thou no 
hope ? 

5 Tis strange — even those who do despair above, 
Yet shape themselves some phantasy on earth. 

To which frail twig they cling, like drowning 
men. 

Man. Ay— father ! I have had those earthly 
visions 

And noble aspirations in my youth, 

To make my own the mind of other men, 

The enlightener of nations ; and to rise 
I knew not whither — it might be to fall ; 

But fall, even as the mountain-cataract, 

Which having leapt from its more dazzling height, 
Bren in the foaming strength of its abyss, 


SCENE I. 


MANFRED. 


53 


(Which casts up misty columns that become 
Clouds i a bung from the re-astien<led skies,) 

Lies low but mighty still. — But this is past, 

My thoughts mistook themselves. 

Abbot, And wherefore so ? 

Man. I could not tame my nature down ; for 
he 

Must serve who fain would sway — and soothe — 
and sue — 

And watch all time — and prv into all place — 
And be a living lie — who would become 
A mighty thing amongst the mean, and such 
The mass are ; I disdained to mingle with 
A herd, though to be leader — and of wolves. 

The lion is alone, and so am I. 

Abbot. And why not live and act with other 
men ? 

Man. Because my nature was averse from 
life ; 

And yet not cruel ; for I would not make, 

But find a desolation : — dike the wind, 

The red-hot breath of the most lone Simoom, 
Which dwells but iu the desert, and sweeps o’er 
The barren sands which bear no shrubs to blast, 
And revels o’er their wild and arid waves, 

And seeketh not, so that it is not sought, 

But being met is deadly ; such hath been 
The course of my existence ; but there came 
Things in my path which are no more. 

5 * 


M 


MANFRED. 


ACT III. 


Abbot. Alas ! 

I ’gin to fear that thou art past all aid 
Trom me and from my calling ; yet so young, 

I still would 

Man. Look on me ! there is an ord6r 

Of mortals on the earth, who do become 
Old in their youth, and die ere middle age, 
Without the violence of warlike death ; 

Some perishing of pleasure — some of study— 
Some worn with toil — some of mere weariness— 
Some of disease — and some insanity — 

And some of withered, or of broken hearts ; 

For this last is a malady which slays 
More than are numbered in the lists of Fate, 
Taking all shapes, and bearing many names. 
Look upon me ! for even of all these things 
Have I partaken ; and of all these things. 

One were enough ; then wonder not that I 
Am what I am, but that I ever was, 

Or, having been, that I am still on earth. 

Abbot. Yet, hear me still— 

Man. Old man ! I do respect 

Thine order, and revere thine years ; I deem 
Thy purpose pious ; but it is in vain : 

Think me not churlish ; I would spare thyself, 
Far more than me, in shunning at this time 
All further colloquy — and so — farewell. 

[ Exit Manfred. 

Abbot. This should have been a noble crea*» 
ture: he 


set ] SfE *. 


MANFREB. 


55 


Haifa all the energy which would have made 
A goodly frame of glorious elements, 

Had they been wisely mingled ; as it is, 

It is an awful chaos— light and darkness— 

And mind and dust— and passions and pure 
thoughts, 

MixM, and contending without end or order, 

All dormant or destructive : he will perish, 

And yet he must not; I will try once more, 

For such are Worth redemption ; and my duty 
Is to dare all things for a righteous end. 
fll follow him— but cautiously, though surely. 

[iSxit Abbot. 


SCENE ir. 

Another Chamber » 

Manfred and Herman. 

Mefi My Lord, you bade me wait on you at 
Stidset : 

Mo Sinks behind the mountain. 

Mailt Doth he so ? 

I will look on him. 

£ Manfred advances to the window of the halt 
Glorious Orb ! the idol 
ij f early nature, and the rigorous race 
df fcifldteO as’d mankind, the giant sons(4) 
tfag embrace of angels, with a Sex 


56 


MANFRED. 


ACT Hi. 


More beautiful than they, which did draw down 
The erring 1 spirits who can ne’er return. — 

Most glorious orb ! that wert a worship, ere 
The mystery of thy making was revealed! 

Thou earliest minister of the Almighty, 

Which gladden’d, on their mountain tops, the 
hearts 

Of the Chaldean shepherds, till they pour’d 
Themselves in orisons ! Thou material God ! 

And representative of the Unknown — 

Who chose thee for his shadow ! Thou chief star ! 
Centre of many stars! which mak’stour earth 
Endurable, and temperest the hues 
And hearts of all who walk within thy rays ! 

Sire of the seasons ! Monarch of the climes, 

And those who dwell in them ! for near or far, 
Our inborn spirits have a tint of thee, 

Even as our outward aspects ; — thou dost rise, 
And shine, and set in glory. Fare thee well ! 

1 ne’er shall see thee more. As my first glance 
Of love and wonder was for thee, then take 
My latest look : thou wilt not beam on one 
To whom the gifts of light and warmth have been 
Of a more fatal nature. lie is gone : 
l follow. 


[Exit Matvfred. 


SCENE III. 


MANFRED. 


57 


SCENE III. 

The Mountains.— -The Castle of Manfred at 
some distance.— -A Terrace before a Tower . — 
Time , twilight. 

Herman, Manuel, and other dependants ef 
Manfred. 

Her. ’Tis strange enough ; night after night, 
for years, 

He hath pursued long vigils in this tower, 
Without a witness. I have been within it, 

So have we all been oft-times ; but from it, 

Or its contents, it were impossible 
To draw conclusions absolute, of aught 
His studies tend to. To be sure, there is 
One chamber where none enter; I would give 
The fee of what I have to come these three years, 
To pore upon its mysteries. 

Manuel. ’Twere dangerous ; 

Content thyself with what thou knowest already. 

Her. Ah ! Manuel ! thou art elderly and wise. 
And could’st say much ; thou hast dwelt within 
the castle — 

How many years is’t ? 

Manuel. Ere Count Manfred’s birth, 

I served his father, whom he nought resembles. 

Her. There be more sons in like predicament. 
But wherein do they differ i 


MANFRED. 


ACT III. 


. r )8 


Manuel. I speak not 

Of features or of form, but mind and habits : 
Count Sigismund was proud, but gay aud free, — 
A warrior and a reveller ; he dwelt not 
With books and solitude, nor made the; night 
A gloomy vigil, but a festal time. 

Merrier than day ; he did not walk the rocks 
And forests like a wolf, nor turn aside 
From men and their delights. 

Her. Beshrew the hour. 

But those were jocund times ! I would that such 
Would visit the old walls again ; they look 
As if they had forgotten them. 

Manuel. These walls 

Must change their chieftain first. Oh ! I have s£en 
Some strange things in them, Herman. 

Her. Come, be friendly ; 

Relate me some to while away our watch : 

Fve heard thee darkly speak of an event 
Which happened hereabouts, by this same tower. 
Manuel. That was a night indeed ; I do re- 
member 

’Twas twilight, as it may be now, and such 
Another evening; — yon red cloud, which rests 
On Eigher’s pinnacle, so rested then — 

So like that it might be the same ; the wind 
Was faint and gusty, and the mountain snows 
Began to glitter with the climbing moon ; 

Count Manfred was, as now, within his tower—. 
How occupied, we know not, but with him 


SCENE III. 


MANFRED. 


59 


The sole companion of his wanderings 
And watchings — her, whom of all earthly things 
That lived, the only thing, he seem’d to love — 
As he, indeed, by blood was bound to do, 

The lady Astarte, his— — - 

Hush ! who comes here ? 

Enter the Abbot. 

Abbot. Where is your master? 

Her. Yonder, in the tower. 

Abbot. I must speak with him. 

Manuel. ’Tis impossible ; 

He is most private, and must not be thus 
Intruded on. 

Abbot. Upon myself I take 

The forfeit of my fault, if fault there be— 

But I must see him. 

Her. Thou hast seen him once 

This eve already. 

Abbot. Herman ! I command thee, 

Knock, and apprize the Count of my approach. 

Iler . We dare not. 

Abbot. Thep it seems I must be herald 
Of my own purpose. 

Manuel. Reverend father, stop — • 

l pray you pause. 

Abbot. Why so? 

Manuel. Rut step this way, 

And I will tell you further. 


[Exeunt* 


GO MANFRED* >*CT **• 


SCENE IV. 

Interior of the Tower . 

Manfred alone. 

Man . The stars are forth, the moon above tb* 
tops 

Of the snow-shining- mountains — Beautiful? 

I linger yet with Nature, for the night 
Hath been to me a more familiar face 
Than that of man ; and in her starry shade 
Of dim and solitary loveliness, 

I learn *d the language of another world. 

I do remember me, that in my youth, 

When I was wandering — upon such a night 
I stood within the Coloseum’s wall, 

’Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome; 

The trees which grew along the broken arches 
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars 
Shone through the rents of ruin ; from afar 
The watchdog bayed beyond the Tiber; and 
More near from out the Caesar’s palace came 
The owl’s long cry, and, interrupted!}', 

Of distant sentinels the fitful song 
Begun and died upon the gentle wind. 

Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach 
Appeared to skirt thehorizDn, yet they stood 


SCENE IV. 


MANFRED. 


61 


Within a bowshot — where the Caesars dwelt, 
And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst 
A grove which springs through leveled battle- 
ments, 

And twines its roots with the imperial hearths ; 
Ivy usurps the laurel’s place of growth ; 

But the gladiator’s bloody Circus stands. 

A noble wreck in ruinous perfection ! 

While Caesar’s chambers, and the Augustan halls, 
Grovel on earth in indistinct decay. — 

And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon 
All this, and cast a wide and tender light, 

Which soften’d down the hoar austerity 
Of rugged desolation, and fill’d up, 

As ’twere, anew, the gaps of centuries ; 

Leaving that beautiful which still was so, 

And making that which was not, till the place 
Became religion, and the heart ran o’er 
With silent worship of the great of old ! — 

The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule 
Our spirits from their urns. — 

’Twas such a night ! 

’Tis strange that I recall it at this time ; 

But I have found our thoughts take wildest flight 
Even at the moment when they should array 
Themselves in pensive order. 

Enter the Abbot. 

Abbot . My good Lord ! 

I crave a second grace for this approach : 

6 


G2 


MANFRED. 


ACT ill. 


But yet let not my humbl ezeal offend 

By its abruptness — all it nath of ill 

Recoils on me ; its good in the effect 

May light upon your head — could I say heart — 

Could I touch that , with words or prayers, I should 

Recall a noble spirit which hath wandered ; 

But is not yet all lost. 

Mdn. Thou know’st me not; 

My days are numbered, and my deeds recorded ; 
Retire, or ’twill be dangerous — Away ! 

Abbot. Thou dost not mean to menace me ? 
Man. Not I ; 

I simply tell thee peril is at hand, 

A^nd would preserve thee. 

* Abbot. What dost mean ? 

Man. Look there ! 

What dost thou see ? 

Abbot. Nothing. 

Man. • Look there, 1 say* 

And steadfastly ; — now tell me what thou secst ? 
Abbot. That which should shake me, — but I 
fear it not — 

t see a dusk and awful figure rise 
Like an infernal god from out the earth ; 

His face wrapt in a mantle, and his form 
Robed as with angry clouds ; he stands between 
Thyself and me — but I do fear him not. 

Man. Thou hast no cause — he shall not harm 
thee — but 

His sight may shock thine old limbs into palsy* 

I say to thee — Retire ! 


SCENE IV. 


MANFRED. 


63 


Abbot. And, I reply — 

Never — till I have battled with this fiend — 
What doth he here ? 

„ Alan. Why — ay — whafc*doth he here ? 

I did not send for him— he is unbidden. 

Abbot. Alas ! lost mortal! what with guests like 
these 

Hast thou to do ? I tremble for thy sake ; 

Why doth he gaze on thee, and thou on him * 

Ah ! he unveils his aspect ; on his brow 
The thunder-scars are graven ; from his eye 
Glares forth the immortality of hell— 

Avaunt ! 

Alan. Pronounce — what is thy mission ? 

Spi. Come ! 

Abbot. What art thou, unknown being ? an- 
swer !— -speak I 

Spi. The genius of this mortal. — Come I ’tfs 
time, 

Alan . I am prepared for all things, but deny 
The power which summons me. Who sent thee 
here ? 

Spi. Thou’lt know anon — Come ! come ! 

Man. I have commanded 

Things of an essence greater far than thine, 

And striven with thy masters. Get thee hence ! 
Spi. Mortal ! thine hour is come — Away ! I say. 
Man . I knew, and know my hour is come, but 
not 

To render up my soul to such ajs thee : 

Away ! I’ll die as I have liv’d— alone. 


04 MANFRED. ACT 1*1. 

Sjpi. Then I must summon up my brethren — 
Rise ! 

[Other Spirits rise up. 

Abbot. Avaunt ! ye evil ones !— Avaunt ! I 
say,— 

Ye have no power where piety hath power, 

And I do charge ye in the name 

Spi. Old man ! 

We know ourselves, our mission, and thine order; 
Waste not thy holy words on idle uses ; 

It were in vain ; this man is forfeited. 

Once more I summon him — Away ! away ! 

Man. I do defy ye — though I feel my soul 
Is ebbing from me, yet I do defy ye ; 

Nor will I hence, while I have earthly breath 
To breathe my scorn upon ye — earthly strength 
To wrestle, though with spirits; what ye take 
Shall be ta’en limb by limb. 

Spi. Reluctant mortal ! 

Is this the Magian who would so pervade 
The world invisible, and make himself 
Almost our equal ? — Can it be that thou 
Art thus in love with life ? the very life 
Which made thee wretched ! 

Man. Thou false fiend, thou liest ? 

My life is in its last hour — that I know. 

Nor would redeem a moment of that hour ; 

I do not combat against death, hut thee 
And thy surrounding angels ; my past power 
Was purchased by no compact with thy crew, 


SCENE IV. 


MANFRED. 


65 


But by superior science— penance — daring— 

And length of watching — strength of mind — and 
skill 

In knowledge of our fathers — when the earth 
Saw men and spirits walking side by side, 

And gave ye no supremacy : I stand 
Upon my strength, — I do defy — deny— 

Spurn back, and scorn ye ! — 

Spi. But thy many crimes 

Have made thee 

Man. What are they to such as thee ? 

Must crimes be punish’d but by other crimes, 
And greater criminals ? — Back to thy hell ! 

Thou hast no power upon me, that I feel ; 

Thou never shalt possess me, that I know : 

What I have done is done ; I bear within 
A torture which could nothing gain from thine : 
The mind which is immortal makes itself 
Requital for its good or evil thoughts — 

Is its own origin of ill and end — 

And its own place and time — its innate sense, 
When stripp’d of this mortality, derives 
No colour from the fleeting things without; 

But is absorb’d in sufferance or in joy, 

Born from the knowledge of its own desert. 

Thou didst not tempt me, and thou couldst not 
tempt me ; 

I have not been thy dupe, nor am thy prey — 
But was my own destroyer, and will be 
6 * 


66 


MANFREJ). 


ACT III. 


My own hereafter, — Back, ye baffled fiends ! 

The hand of death is on me — but not yours ! 

[The Demons disappear. 
Abbot . Alas ! how pale thou art — thy lips are 
white — 

And thy breast heaves — and in thy gasping throat 
Ths accents rattle — Give thy prayers to heaven — 
Pray albeit but in thought — but die not thus. 
Man. ’Tis over — my dull eyes can fix thee 
not ; 

But all things swim around me, and the earth 
Heaves, as it were, beneath me. Fare thee well— 
Give me thy hand. 

[Manfred expires . 
Abbot. Cold— cold — even to the heart- 

But yet one prayer — alas ! how fares it with 
thee ? 

He’s gone his soul hath ta’en its earthless 

flight— 

Whither ? I dread to think ■--■■but be is gone. 


NOTES 





1 % ' 





>V'- ■ 

' 

; ■ -j ft ’■ Si- 

3^. . \-u-wV. s ^ w *w v 


- 

■ * ' 


« 






























NOTES 


Note I, page 28, line 18. 

- t.n.e sunbow's rays still arch 
The torrent with the many hues of heaven. 

This iris is formed by the rays of the sun over 
the lower part of the Alpine torrents : it is ex« 
actly like a rainbow, come down to pay a visit, 
and so close that you may walk into it this ef- 
fect lasts till noon. 

Note 2, page 32, line 11. 

He who from out their fountain dwellings raised 
Eros and Anteros., at Gadara. 

The philosopher Iamblibus. The story of the 
-raising of Eros and Anteros may be found in hi« 
life, by Eunapius. It is well told. 

Note 3, page 36, line 3. 

she replied 

In words of dubious import , but fulfilled . 

The story of Pausanius, king of Sparta, (who 
commanded the Greeks at the battle of Platea, 
and afterwards perished for an attempt to betray 


NOTES. 


the Lacedemonians] and Cleoniee, is told in Plu-» 
tarch's life of Cimon ; and in the Laconics of 
Pausanius the Sophist, in his description of 
Greece. 

Note 4, page 55, line 29. , 

the giant sons 

Of the embrace of angels. 

c< That the Sons of God saw the daughters of 
men that they were fair,” &c. 

u There were giants on the earth in those days, 
and also after that, when the Sons of God came 
in unto the daughters of men ; and they bare 
children to them, the same became mighty men, 
Which were of old, men of renown.” 

Gemsis , ch. vi. verses 2 and 4* 


THE EM>. 


4f 


% 


9 



















\ 







THE 


LAMENT OF TASSO. 





At Ferrara (in the library) are preserved 
the original MSS. of Tasso’s Gierusalemme 
and of Guarini’s Pastor Fido, with letters of 
Tasso, one from Titian to Ariosto; and the 
inkstand and chair, the tomb and the house, 
of the latter. But as misfortune has a greater 
interest for posterity, and little or none for 
the cotemporary, the cell where Tasso was 
confined in the hospital of St. Anna attracts 
a more fixed attention than the residence or 
the monument of Ariosto — at least, it had this 
effect on me. There are two inscriptions, one 
on the outer gate, the second over the cell 
itself, inviting, unnecessarily, the wonder and 
the indignation of the spectator. Ferrara is 
much decayed, and depopulated ; the castle 
still exists entire ; and l saw the court where 
Parisina and Hugo were beheaded, accord- 
ing to the annal of Gibbon. 



THE 


LAMENT OF TASSO, 


I. 

Long 1 years ! — It tries the thrilling’ frame to 
bear 

And eagle-spirit of a Child of Song — 

Long years of outrage, calumny and wrong ; 
Imputed madness, prisoned solitude, 

And the mind’s canker in its savage mood, 
When the impatient thirst of light and air 
Parches the heart ; and the abhorred grate, 
Marring the sunbeams with its hideous shade. 




8 


LAMENT OF TASSO. 


Works through the throbbing eyeball to the 
brain 

With a hot sense of heaviness and pain ; 

And bare, at once, Captivity displayed 
Stands scoffing through the never-opened 
gate, 

Which nothing through its bars admits, save 
day 

And tasteless food, which I have eat alone 
Till its unsocial bitterness is gone ; 

And I can banquet like a beast of prey, 
Sullen and lonely, couching in the cave 
Which is my lair, and — it may be — my grave. 
All this hath somewhat worn me, and may 
wear, 

But must be borne. I stoop not to despair j 
For I have battled with mine agony, 

And made me wings wherewith to overfly 
The narrow circus of my dungeon wall, 

And freed the Holy Sepulchre from thrall ; 


LAMENT OF TASSO. 


9 


And revelled among- men and things divine, 
And poured my spirit over Palestine, 

In honour of the sacred war for him. 

The God who was on earth and is in heaven, 
For he hath strengthened me in heart and 
limb. 

That through this sufferance I might be for- 
given, 

I have employed my penance to record 
How Salem’s shrine was won, and how adored. 


II. 

But this is o’er — my pleasant task is done t— ■ 
My long-sustaining friend of many years ! 

If I do blot thy final page with tears, 

Know, that my sorrows have wrung from me 
none. 

But thou, my young creation ! my soul’s child 5 
Which ever playing round me came and 
smiled, 

I* 


10 


LAMENT OF TASSO. 


And wooed me from myself with thy sweet 
sight, 

Thou too art gone — and so is my delight : 
And therefore do I weep and inly bleed 
With this last bruise upon a broken reed. 
Thou too art ended — what is left me now ? 
For I have anguish yet to bear — and how 1 
1 know not that — but in the innate force 
Of my own spirit shall be found resource. 

I have not sunk, for I had no remorse, 

JNor cause for such : they called me mad— 
and why? 

Oh Leonora ! wilt not thou reply ? 

I was indeed delirious in my heart 
To lift my love so lofty as thou art ; 

But still my frenzy was not of the mind ; 

I knew my fault, and feel my punishment 
Not less because I sutler it unbent. 


LAMENT OF TASSO. 


II 


That thou wert beautiful, and I not blind, 
Hath been the sin which shuts me from man- 
kind ; 

But let them go, or torture as they will, 

My heart can multiply thine image still ; 
Successful love may sate itself away, 

The wretched are the faithful ; ’tis their fate 
To have all feeling save the one decay, 

And every passion into one dilate, 

As rapid rivers into ocean pour ; 

But ours is fathomless, and hath no shore. 

nr. 

Above me, hark ! the long and maniac cry 
Of minds and bodies in captivity. 

And hark ! the lash and the increasing howl. 
And the half-inarticulate blasphemy ! 

There be some here with worse than frenzy 
foul, 


u 


LAMENT OF TASSO. 


Jfome who do still goad on the o’er-laboure& 
mind, 

And dim the little light that’s left behind 

With needless torture, as their tyrant will 

Is wound up to the lust of doing ill : 

With these and with their victims am I classed, 

*Mid sounds and sights like these loDg years 
have passed ; 

# Mid sights and sounds like these my life 
may close : 

So let it be — for then I shall repose. 


IV. 

I have been patient, let me be so yet ; 

I had forgotten half 1 M ould forget, 

But it revives — oh ! would it were my lot 
To be forgetful as 1 am forgot ! — 

Feel I not n T roth with those who bade me 
dwell 

In this vast lazar-house of many woes? 


LAMENT OF TASSO. 


IS 

Where laughter is not mirth, nor thought the 
mind, 

Nor words a language, nor e’en men man- 
kind ; 

Where cries reply to curses, shrieks to blows, 

And each is tortured in his separate hell— 

For we are crowded in our solitudes— 

Many, but each divided by the wall, 

Which echoes Madness in her babbling 
moods ; — 

While all can hear, none heed his neighbour’s 
call — 

None ! save that One, the veriest wretch of 
all, 

Who was not made to be the mate of these, 

Nor bound between Distraction and Disease. 

Feel 1 not wroth with those who placed me 
here ? 

Who have debased me in the minds of men, 

Debarring me the usage of my own, 


14 


LAMENT OF TASSO. 


Blighting my life in best of its career, 
Branding my thoughts as things to shun and 
fear? 

I 

Would I not pay them back these pangs 
again, 

And teach them inward sorrow's stifled groan ? 
The struggle to be calm, and cold distress, j| 
Which undermines our stoical success ? 

No ! — still too proud to be vindictive — I 
Have pardoned princes* insults, and would 
die. 

Yes, Sister of my Sovereign ! for thy sake 
I weed all bitterness from out my breast, 

It hath no business where thou art a guest ; 
Thy brother hates — but I can not detest ; 
Thou pitiest not — but I can not forsake. 

V. 

Look on a love which knows not to despair, 
But all unquenched is still my better part, 
Dwelling deep in my shut and silent heart 


LAMENT OF TASSO. 


• 15 

As dwells the gathered lightning in its cloud, 
Encompassed with its dark and rolling shroud, 
Till struck, — forth flies the all-ethereal dart .* 
And thus at the collision of thy name 
The vivid thought still flashes through my 
frame, 

And for a moment all things as they were 
Flit by me ; — they are gone — I am the same. 
And yet my love without ambition grew ; 

I knew thy state, my station, and 1 knew 
A princess was no love- mate for a bard ; 

I told it not, I breathed it not, it was 
Sufficient to itself, its own reward ; 

And if my eyes revealed it, they, alas ! 

Were punished by the silentness of thine, 
And yet 1 did not venture to repine. 

Thou wert to me a crystal-girded shrine, 
Worshipped at holy distance, and around 
Hallowed and meekly kissed the saintly 
ground ; 


16 


LAMENT OF TASSO. 


Not for thou wert a princess, hut that Love 
Had robed thee with a glory, and arrayed 
Thy lineaments in beauty that dismayed — 
Oh ! not dismayed— but awed, like One 
above ; 

And in that sweet severity there was 
A something which all softness did surpass— 
I know not how — thy genius mastered mine— 
My star stood still before thee : — if it were 
Presumptuous thus to love without design. 
That sad fatality hath cost me dear; 

But thou art dearest still, and I should be 
Fit for this cell, which wrongs me, but for 
thee. 

The very love which locked me to my chain 
Hath lightened half its weight ; and for the 
rest, 

Though heavy, lent me vigour to sustain, 
And look to thee with undivided breast, 

And foil the ingenuity of Pain, 


LAMENT OF TASSO. 


17 


It is no marvel — from my very birth 
C My soul was drunk with love, which did per- 
| vade 

i And mingle with whate’er I saw on earth ; 

" Of objects all inanimate I made 

( Idols, and out of wild and lonely flowers, 
And rocks, whereby they grew, a paradise, 
Where I did lay me down within the shade 
Of waving trees, and dreamed uncounted 
hours, 

Though I was chid for wandering ; and the 
wise 

13hook their white aged heads o’er me, and 
said 

Of such materials wretched men were made, 
And such a truant boy would end in wo, 

And that the only lesson was a blow ; 


18 


LAMENT OF TASSO. 


And then they smote me, and I did not weep, 
But cursed them in my heart, and to my 
haunt 

Returned and wept alone, and dreamed again 
The visions which arise without a sleep. 

And with my years my soul began to pant 
With feelings of strange tumult and soft 
pain ; 

And the whole heart exhaled into One Want, 
But undefined and wandering, till the day 
I found the thing I sought — and that was 
thee ; 

And then I lost my being all to be 
Absorbed in thine — the world was past 
away— 

Thou didst annihilate the earth to me ! 

VII. 

1 loved all solitude— but little thought 
To spend I know not what of life, remote 


LAMENT OF TASSO. 


19 


From all communion with existence, save 
iThe maniac and his tyrant ; had I been 

Their fellow, many years ere this had seen 

/ 

My mind like theirs corrupted to its grave ; 
But who hath seen me writhe, or heard me 
rave ? 

Perchance in such a cell we suffer more 
Than the wrecked sailor on his desert shore; 
The world is all before him — mine is here , 
Scarce twice the space they must accord my 
bier. 

What though he perish, he may lift his eye 
And with a dying glance upbraid the sky— - 
I will not raise my own in such reproof, 
Although *tis clouded by my dungeon roof. 

VIII. 

Tet do I feci at times my mind decline, 

But with a sense of its decay: — I see 
Unwonted lights along my prison shine, 

And a strange demon, who is vexing me 


20 


LAMENT OF TASSO. 


With pilfering" pranks and petty pains, be* 
low 

The feeling of the healthful and the free ; 
But much to One, who long hath suffered so, 
Sickness of heart, and narrowness of place. 
And all that may be borne, or can debase. 

I thought mine enemies had been but man, 
But spirits may be leagued with them — all 
Earth 

Abandons — Heaven forgets me— in the dearth 
Of such defence the Powers of Evil can, 

It may be, tempt me further, and prevail 
Against the outworn creature they assail. 
Why in this furnace is my spirit proved 
Like steel in tempering fire? because 1 
loved ? 

Because 1 loved what not to love, and see, 
Was more or less than mortal, and than me 


LAMENT OF TASSO. 


21 

f ix. 

I once was quick in feeling — that is o’er — 
M y scars are callous, or I should have dashed 
My brain against these bars as the sun 
flashed 

In mockery through them ; — if I bear and 
bore 

The much I have recounted, and the more 
I Which hath no words, ’tis that I would not 
die 

And sanction with self-slaughter the dull lie 
Which snared me here, and with the brand 
of shame 

Stamp madness deep into my memory, 

And woo compassion to a blighted name. 
Sealing the sentence which my foes proclaim. 
No — it shall be immortal! — and I make 
A future temple of my present cell,. 


22 


LAMENT OF TASSO. 


Which nations yet shall visit for my sake. 
While thou, Ferrara ! when no longer dwell 
The ducal chiefs within thee, shalt fall down, 
And crumbling piecemeal view thy hearthless 
halls, 

A poet’s wreath shall be thine only crown, 

A poet’s dungeon thy most far renown, 
While strangers wonder o’er thy unpeopled 
walls ! 

And thou, Leonora ! thou — who wert ashamed 
That such as I could love — who blushed to 
hear 

To less than monarchs that thou couldst be 
dear, 

Go ! tell thy brother that my heart, untamed 
By grief, years, weariness — and it may be 
A taint of that he would impute to me— 
From long infection of a den like this, 
Where the mind rots congenial with the abyss, 


LAMENT OF TASSO. 


23 


Adores thee still ; — and add — that when the 
towers 

And battlements which guard his joyous 
hours 

Of banquet, dance, and revel, are forgot, 

Or left untended in a dull repose, 

|; This — this shall be a consecrated spot ! 

But Thou — when all that Birth and Beauty 

throws 

i 

Of magic round thee is extinct — shalt have 
One half the laurel which o’ershades my grave. 
No power in death can tear our names apart, 
As none in life could rend thee from my 
heart. 

Yes, Leonora ! it shall be our fate 
To be entwined for ever — but too late ? 


















> 

* 







. 





























\ 





y „ _ . ^ 


0 * y. 


W :)M^Y\Y 

S rY Y „ (T V 



'■>-'' r <f" 4 .., <0- 
.&y^4i® L*,% 




•'*«'■ ^ "■" s>\’*«, % y “- 1 . 

Yr.^ 



* **' <&> „ <\. v '**s' _A° 

^ cP ^ cP^ **•*»• 




nH Q z 


kV ^ 



* V s : 







**' ^ »***>■ 


A C 


^ .. . — L A 

Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. I 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 


° ‘ Treatment Date: March 2009 


PreservationTechnologies ^ 

V. C A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive h 

Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



m an /immimiw 


-> * fSy a* OF 

V 0 ’ 


CL ■* 0 


* K 


W 


<r' 






< ..s' ,, 

fO T s^* ^ 



C V 

'W f 

- ^ ^ l 



9 


v % / \ 

* o 

« ^ J -* * ° ^ ^ 


L* 













V % 



IS 







N 



f U 


+ Sir 

\ > „ S * 0 







9l y o * X * s$> 

» % V ** 

° ^ ^ - 


cS Aj. -* 

,V ^ * 



J * * S ■ 

* * T , 

*, <%> 

* v*x ^ 

** ^ 0 * 



0 °' V s 



N 


9> y o * v * ^ 9^ y o * *• * \^ . 

*' % 4 ‘ ,Wr •*■ r ^ 





•XJ 


.,S S <<. -L 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 


0 014 434 789 4 # 


